


let's go out with a bang!

by weewooweewoo (WaitWhatDoIPutHere)



Series: or did it eat the little girl? [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Character Death, F/F, F/M, Fan Killing Game (Dangan Ronpa), Guns, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Underage Drug Use, does it count as a killing game?? people are killing.... so ig, inspired by the belko experiment, miu makes a lot of........jokes.........., thank you korekiyo for that last tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:08:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 43
Words: 224,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25817056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaitWhatDoIPutHere/pseuds/weewooweewoo
Summary: "I'd say there are about a thousand of you currently in the building," The voice says, low and hideous-sounding. "By the end of the day, thirty of you will be dead. There will be severe consequences if you have not reached this criteria at the end of the time limit.""Don't make us drag innocent people into this," The other voice continues. "You know who you are."------------------------------------VR au where every killing game participant is required to attend a convention. things go haywire pretty quickly.(himiko and miu protag!!)
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede & Iruma Miu, Chabashira Tenko/Yumeno Himiko, Harukawa Maki/Momota Kaito, Kirigiri Kyoko/Naegi Makoto, Oma Kokichi & Yumeno Himiko, Shinguji Korekiyo & Yumeno Himiko, platonic relationships are all the rage now babyyyyy, romantic relationships aren't the focus!!
Series: or did it eat the little girl? [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1873183
Comments: 1235
Kudos: 285





	1. prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> movie night goes from bad to awful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ladies, gentleman, and non-binary folks, it is official. i am back on my bullshit! 
> 
> this story follows Or Did it Eat the Little Girl’s canon, however i wouldn’t necessarily call it a sequel? just… using the same killing game, if that makes sense?? 
> 
> it is no way required for you to read the first story since this is a change in POV, however there are elements that may be confusing! some of these elements include tenko, kaito, and kokichi surviving the killing game, tenko and himiko growing close and dating, as well as other little things. another important note for this prologue: kaito, maki, shuichi, tenko, kokichi, and himiko are currently in canada!
> 
> this story expands a lot on their universe and follows more than one POV, so i really hope you enjoy it!! :D

“Everybody sit down and shut the fuck up!” Miu demands, grabbing the laptop off of Kaede’s lap and pressing the button to screen share, “The show is about to begin!”

Ryoma sighs from the other end of the Zoom call, so loudly that Himiko could hear him from the next city over where he resided, “Miu, I swear to god. If you chose _The Cat in the Hat_ again--”

“We’re watching _The Cat in the Hat!”_

Ryoma closes his eyes, face blank with disappointment, “...I’m hanging up.”

He’s met with a sea of disagreement. The video call lags as everybody cries out for him not to leave, buffering and reducing in quality. The reception was even poorer for the half of the group that was watching from the other side of the world. Ryoma and Gonta were basically freeze-frames at this point.

_Ryoma, no!_ Kaede signs, giggling hoarsely, _We all suffer together!_

“Everybody!! _Ssshh!!”_ Miu silences aggressively, throwing a blanket over herself and leaving Kaede in the cold. The girl next to her babbles in protest. 

Himiko could say she enjoyed movie nights. She can’t remember which one of them had suggested they do it, probably one of the more sentimental ones like Kaede or Shuichi. Maybe even Tenko, who had popped the popcorn that Himiko was currently shoving in her mouth. Either way, it was this tri-monthly _“get along”_ tradition that their group therapist basically insisted they all attempt. Everybody in the class, no matter where they were in the world or what timezone they might be in, had to join the Zoom call that Tenko sends out and watch a movie together. It was Miu’s turn to pick the movie, and she always chooses the exact same one. _The Cat in the Hat,_ starring Mike Myers and Dakota Fanning.

No matter how much the people in the Zoom call grumble and whine, Himiko knew deep down that they still enjoyed each other’s company. Most of them would _never_ admit it out loud, and many of them were still incredibly awkward with each other, but it was better than being alone, she supposes. She felt bad for those who didn’t have roommates. Other than Gonta and Ryoma, who usually went on long bike rides (Gonta's idea, obviously), she can’t really recall anyone else having plans.

It was calm during movie night. Sometimes it could get a little tense, but usually it was chill enough that Himiko got to take a peaceful nap for an hour or so.

“This movie hurts my eyes,” Himiko complains, her head buried in Tenko’s chest. It was warm there. The set-up they’ve created was comfortable: a bowl of popcorn lying in between them, the largest blankets they could possibly locate, all of the lights turned low so they could really see the movie. 

“Would it help if you closed them?” Kokichi suggests unhelpfully. 

Himiko’s eyes narrow sarcastically, “Thank you.”

Kokichi blows her a kiss. She gags playfully. Tenko pretends to swat the kiss out of the air.

The class sat in pensive silence, squinting at the movie ahead of them. Shuichi was muttering the dialogue underneath his breath, having watched the movie so many times that he had basically memorized it. Others had their eyes fixated on the Japanese subtitles, their gaze flickering back and forth between the words and the actual events. Despite it most likely being the afternoon where Angie was, she was already yawning. The only person that seemed majorly invested in this movie was Miu, who was bobbing her head along to the songs and staring intently at the colors. 

Himiko couldn’t necessarily say she _liked_ the movie, but It was Miu’s night to choose, so the strawberry blonde was going to choose a movie that was familiar. A movie that she knows won’t throw her for a loop, a movie that she knows won’t surprise her. Like when Tenko had chosen a crime-fighting movie, which she had promised “wouldn’t be too triggering for anybody” but then immediately had to apologize when the first casualty was due to strangulation. The pure panic that appeared in Miu’s eyes as she watched the main character grab the nearest rope and strangle his unsuspecting victim to death was hard to watch, way too painful even for Himiko. Movie night had ended as soon as it started that night. Gonta had been very, very silent. And Miu had left very, very early. 

Tenko would call her about eleven times that night to attempt apologizing, but Miu would just shrug it off. It still didn’t help the brunette feel any better. She got very emotional about things quite quickly, and probably cried for a solid two hours out of pure guilt. From then on out, Tenko had made a promise to watch the movie in its entirety before showing it to any of her friends.

_The Cat in the Hat_ was not violent. It was a stupid, stupid movie, but it would not send Miu into a wild panic. It wouldn’t shock Gonta into a warbling silence or make anybody feel guilty about watching it. So whatever!! Himiko will watch it!! And everybody else there is going to suffer and watch it with her!!

Kirumi seemed more confused than anything. It seems the copious amounts of times that the group had watched this movie did nothing to mute her bewilderment. 

“...Has anybody seen Rantaro? Or Korekiyo?” She queries, hands still plaited neatly on her lap. She’s resting in her bed, a cup of tea positioned on the nightstand next to her. Her roommate was really sweet, apparently, and always made sure to ask if she wanted a cup before movie nights, “I’ve noticed they are the only ones not here.”

Himiko can’t help but furrow her eyebrows at one particular name. Tenko tenses from next to her, shoulders suddenly stiffening. 

They weren’t the _“only ones”_ not there. Their class of sixteen had been whittled down to a mere twelve. K1-B0 was still a prototype, an AI that Miu kept in her phone, and Tsumugi was nowhere to be seen. Which was probably for the best, anyways, for every party involved. Himiko doubts anybody really _wanted_ to see Tsumugi, after what she had done. And Tsumugi was probably safer hiding away from Danganronpa, keeping out of sight before the team could pull _another_ contract out of their ass and force her to sign anything else.

“Rantaro’s got legal shit goin’ on. Meeting with his lawyers,” Miu answers. Her voice was getting hoarser every time she spoke. Kaede signs something towards her, but she’s angled so awkwardly Himiko can’t catch all of it. Something about Miu being quiet and saving her voice.

“And Korekiyo is not coming! He go to-- He _has_ to go... to therapy,” Gonta answers slowly, processing the new grammar before speaking. He sits upright in a chair, pleasantly formal despite everybody telling him that he didn’t have to be so polite during movie night. His brown hair, cut up to his chin and a lot less mangled than it was in the killing game, was thrown back into a sloppy ponytail and was probably the least neat thing about him.

“Good for him. This movie sucks ass,” Kaito says.

Miu scoffs, personally offended, “Shut the hell up, fuckboy! This movie is more entertaining than your entire personality!” 

_Miu,_ Kaede signs, eyes narrowed in warning.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

It’s not like she meant it. Kaito knew that. It was probably the jab at his personality that set Kaede off, the subtle reminder of their prewritten characters. The call settles into an uncomfortable silence.

Somebody closes the door on Angie’s end. Her roommate had returned home from work and started a conversation, quite loudly, to make matters worse. Kaede pulls out her phone and begins texting somebody, one of her other friends. Miu rolls her eyes at their inattention, slumping further down the couch. 

Himiko purses her lips. Nobody was paying attention. She was getting tired, as well. It was probably the warmth of both her girlfriend and the blanket over her, mixed with the dim lighting. 

She wasn’t as close to the people still in Japan as everybody else was. She knows that people have begun forming groups, have started to break off into cliques. She knows that Kirumi and Angie hang out quite a bit, just quietly painting or reading. She knows that Gonta tries to keep in contact with all of his friends, arranging times to hangout whether it be over Zoom or in real life. Well, _almost_ everybody. There were some people he couldn't look out without a certain killing game coming to mind.

But Himiko can’t complain. Her friends in Canada are really nice. If you had asked Himiko a year ago what she thought about Kokichi, she would probably go on this massive rant about how selfish, insolent, obnoxious, and downright cruel he was. So to think that she was actually really close to him now was weird. She probably got really lucky with her friend group, considering it was made up of only survivors, and everybody there was basically in the same boat regarding their experiences in Danganronpa.

“Surely this man gets arrested,” Ryoma comments on the movie, mouth full of popcorn and hands reaching for a drink, “There’s gotta be some law he’s breaking.”

“Who? The Cat in the Hat or the bad guy?” Tenko asks, head tilting to the side.

“Both should be thrown in jail,” Shuichi nods, “For child endangerment and--”

His phone dings. 

Before he is able to finish speaking, Shuichi pulls it out of his pocket and begins reading. The class, all wishing to focus on him rather than the movie they’ve watched for maybe the hundredth time now, all silently wait for him to finish. They watch Shuichi as his face morphs from interest, to scrunching in disdain, and finally to hollow fear.

“What the fuck, guys!!” Miu says, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation, “Watch the goddamn movie!!”

“Uh-- Yeah, um, sorry. Sorry, I’ll--” The raven-haired teen stares down at the tiny screen, words hitching in his throat. Something he is reading has caught his attention.

“Ugh, whatever! If you guys didn’t want to watch the movie, we’ll watch something--” Miu finds her words faltering, overzealous confidence somewhat fading for the briefest of moments, “Something else, I guess.”

Despite Miu offering to find another movie for them to watch, it seems Shuichi’s attention had been diverted completely. He’s focused intently on whatever had been sent to him, his eyes wide and unblinking. Kokichi leans over to take a peek, movements exaggerated like always, but Shuichi very quickly averts his body before the boy is able to read anything. At this point, everybody in the call has taken notice.

“What’s that, Shuichi?” Kaito questions. Maki rubs meticulously under her eyes, careful not to ruin her sharp eye makeup. 

Shuichi stays silent.

“Helloooooo? Shumai?” Kokichi sings, waving his hand in front of his face. Himiko’s exhales through her nose, humoured by the nickname. 

Shuichi blinks, suddenly dropping back into reality, “Oh, right. Sorry, guys. Just excuse me for a moment?”

With those hurried words, the teenager stands up and exits the screen, presumably leaving the apartment with his phone. So movie night was already a bust. Himiko would have to let her therapist know, which means this tri-monthly tradition would most likely become a quad-monthly event.

“Any clue what that was about?” Tenko asks, concerned.

“No,” Most people reply. 

Tenko’s platonic relationship with Shuichi was another detail that many found intriguing or downright appalling. At the start of the killing game, Tenko would rather fling herself off of a building than admit to anybody that she actually cared about any of the “degenerate males”. The first time everybody had sat down and called each other, the first impromptu “movie night”, most of the people who had been killed during the killing game had questions. _What was the deal with you guys surviving when we couldn't? Why does Tenko suddenly not hate every male within a five mile radius? Does anybody here still own their uniform? Because mine was actually pretty hot and I want it back._

Kaede snaps her fingers, calling for people’s attention.

_I think I have an idea,_ She signs, having dropped her phone onto her lap. On the screen, a very wordy email written directly to her, _Did anybody else get the email?_

Miu sighs and pauses the movie. This seemed more important.

The group shuffle to pull out their own phones or swipe at their laptops until they’ve opened up their emails. Himiko has a habit of completely ignoring her emails, considering the crazy Danganronpa fans that kept emailing her with insults and death threats, no matter how many times she changed email addresses. She notices a new notification.

“Is it something we should be concerned about?” Angie asks, accent thick and sweet. 

Kaede grits her teeth, obviously hesitant to reply.

_Yeah,_ She answers, _It’s Team Danganronpa. They want us to attend a convention._

The mood sombers almost instantly. 

Himiko can feel her stomach flipping, a heavy dread sinking into her gut. Tenko basically freezes from where she was lying, her entire body stiffening and growing cold in her arms. Neither of them have to read the email themselves. Just hearing the name shoots a sharp chill up their spines.

Himiko has been very vocal about her distaste towards Team Danganronpa and the killing game as a whole. She’s probably the most adamant on her support towards the AHL and their efforts to destroy the series before any more unknowing teenagers willingly sign away all of their rights to join their favorite show. As much as she supports the Anti-Hope League, she’s not _in_ the group, but she still makes sure to do her part, whether it be through signing petitions or assisting those who are wishing to protest. It didn’t feel like much. Himiko never felt like anything she did was that consequential, was that important to anybody. It’s this lingering feeling of uselessness that has plagued her ever since she left the game.

She tries to ignore Danganronpa as far as her contracts allow her to. If she is not contractually obligated to attend, then she will not attend. Even if she was forced to do an interview or forced to talk to a reporter about her experience, she will be vague and so impossible to work with that nobody wants to ask her questions about the killing game again. Some of her friends were having a harder time with the press. She knows that Shuichi became sort of a scapegoat for interviews and the like, considering he was too nervous to decline the first time and was now swamped with requests to follow up. 

Tenko finally finds the email that Kaede was so concerned about, her movements robotic and slow.

“To whomever it may concern--” She begins reading out loud, as the rest of the class fidget with their devices to read along.

“Ooh! Fancy,” Kokichi hums. Himiko is too busy reading to acknowledge his quips.

“Congratulations,” Tenko continues to read, “You have been invited to the Danganronpa Convention, taking place at the Cypress Hotel in Tokyo, Japan. Meet with other killing game participants, new and old, in this week-long convention of performances, demonstrations, Q&A panels, live auctions--”

“Tokyo?” Maki asks, before shaking her head, “I’m not paying for a ticket back to Japan.”

“--Plane tickets are all inclusive, as well as hotel rooms and meal accommodation,” Tenko reads. A few of their classmates hum in intrigue, however resilient they were to attend. 

“Pardon my interruption, but did you say we would be meeting with other killing game participants?” Kirumi questions, “As in, those who were in the killing games before us?”

“No way in fuckin’ hell am I going. Danganronpa can kiss my beautiful, beautiful ass,” Miu hisses, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

Kaede hums in agreement from next to her, slinking downwards on the couch. Her and Miu had gotten closer after the killing game, probably due to their mutual trauma over death by asphyxiation as well as their aversion to Danganronpa. It’s something they almost instantly bonded over. Mutual hatred. Especially towards Tsumugi. Team Danganronpa had given Kaede absolutely no warning before _that_ reveal, had not told her anything about Tsumugi framing her and sending her to her unjust demise. According to multiple sources from inside the hospital, that reveal was unpleasant for Kaede at best.

“...No, I think we’re required to,” Ryoma grumbles, yanking a box out from under his bed and sifting through files, “Here. Section 3, paragraph 5 of the contracts we signed states that all killing participants _must_ attend all promotional events or launches they are invited to unless they are incapacitated or unable to do so.”

Himiko inhales deeply and sighs for a solid eight count. Stupid Danganronpa with their stupid convention and their stupid…. Contracts!! It wasn’t as if _she_ signed anything, her _past_ self did!! The whole argument was delusional! And the subject of _many_ of Himiko’s anger-fueled rants.

Kaede sighs as well, sitting stiffly upwards.

_What a bunch of… jerks! It’s just so not fair!_ She signs, gestures hurried by her annoyance, _We’ve already been through enough! Can’t they just--_

“Uh, Kaede, could you slow down a sec?” Kaito requests, moving his face forward, “I’m not that great at signing yet.”

Kaede nods, _I said it wasn’t fair._

“What-- What was that last word?”

“I thought I sent you those sign language videos, you dick! Did you even fuckin’ watch them!?” Miu accuses.

“Well, I-- I didn’t have _time_ , I’m still trying to catch up on--”

“Let’s not get out of hand,” Kirumi pauses, hands up to gesture for them to slow down, “This email might be frightening, but it’s no reason to yell.”

“I’m not yelling! I’m super fuckin’ calm!!” Miu retorts, volume suddenly increasing at the request to calm down, “And I’m not frightened of Danganronpa, cuz I already said I wasn’t going!!”

Himiko agreed wholeheartedly, but voicing it out loud probably wouldn’t do much.

“You _have_ to, Miu. It’s non-negotiable,” Ryoma says, “Trust me, I’m not exactly thrilled, either.”

“Then fight back about it!! What, you’re all just gonna fuckin’ accept it!? Do you even _know_ what happened in that shitty game!?” 

“Ah, yes! I believe we were _all there_ , in fact,” Angie replies, smile passive-aggressive. 

A few of the classmates ‘ooooh’ lowly. Embarrassed and suddenly unconfident, Miu shrivels with a weak demand of, “Sh-Shut up!!”

Tenko exhales shakily, adjusting her seating position so the laptop no longer resides in her lap. Noticing that she was standing up to leave, Himiko quickly takes the device from her and places it on her own legs.

“I think I'm going to-- I think I’m gonna get some air, real quick,” Tenko mumbles, giving Himiko a quick peck on the forehead before shuffling out of their bedroom and presumably out the front door.

Eugh, Himiko felt horrible. The event had not even happened yet, would not happen for another month, but she could already sense the anxiety creeping up on her. As well as the event being hosted by Team Danganronpa, a team which she held no trust towards, Himiko was not a people person. Even Tenko, as enthusiastic and awkward as she was, held slightly more social charisma than the redhead did. Large crowds of people she had to talk to made Himiko nervous, exhausting her just by thinking about it. 

It made her even more nervous considering this whole AHL commotion. The group was attacking Danganronpa more and more, their protests growing more destructive each time they demonstrated publicly. A large convention like this, where every previous killing game participant was contractually obligated to attend, just felt… _dangerous._ Incredibly stupid and _dangerous._

Himiko looks up at her screen. Shuichi has returned, and is currently talking to Kokichi. Gonta was typing something out, an email to his lawyers probably, and asking Kirumi for grammatical help. Miu had hung up abruptly, taking Kaede with her. 

“Is Tenko alright?” Maki asks. 

Himiko nods, “Yeah, just getting some air. Shuichi, where’d you go?”

At the mention of his name, the raven-haired teen whips his head towards the camera, ending his side conversation with Kokichi, “On a call with a, uh," His eyes shift nervously to the side for a second, "Lawyer. You got the email too, right?”

“Yeah. There’s nothing we can do about it?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Shuichi sighs, begrudgingly, “It’s… pretty definite.”

“This _suuuuuuccckkkkksssss,”_ Kokichi complains, slinking to the floor and out of the camera’s view. After a second of lying on the floor, he quickly bounces back onto the screen, “That was a lie! I love Danganronpa! I will start packing immediately!” 

He skips off. Himiko doesn’t see him again during the call.

Ryoma looks dangerously close to leaving the call as well. He’s been rather quiet for some time now, staring at the email on his phone, processing it rather roughly. Angie had broken off from the video call and started another conversation with her roommate, a conversation in her native language that Himiko couldn’t understand, but considering how worried her expression had gotten it was no doubt about Danganronpa. 

Kokichi was right. This _does_ suck. The last time Himiko had been invited to one of these “convention” things was probably a year ago, when the group still lived in Japan and the killing game had basically just happened. The surviving group, being the only people discharged from the hospital at the time, had to attend a Q&A panel at an anime convention not too far from where Himiko’s last apartment was. The questions people asked were insane, way too personal and borderline cruel from them to be suggesting. And now Himiko had to suffer through a whole _week_ of that??

Dread has turned into anger, her nose scrunching in clear disdain. Himiko’s face is growing hot, and she just _knows_ her cheeks are beginning to grow red. She mumbles something under her breath, wanting to agree with Miu, wanting the class to fight back a little more than they currently were, but nobody can hear her. Or if they did, they were too preoccupied. Maybe Tenko had the right idea. Maybe blowing off some steam and heading outside was the right thing to do.

Ryoma hangs up abruptly. Kirumi pardons herself and requests for Gonta to call her privately so they could discuss his email a little more clearly. Angie breaks off from her agitated conversation with her roommate, wishes everybody a tense goodbye, and logs off as well. The only people left on the call were Shuichi, Maki, Kaito, and Himiko.

Shuichi hasn’t looked up from his phone, chin resting on his fist, “...How are you guys feeling?”

“Is it awful to say… kinda excited? I mean, not about the Q&A stuff, but meeting the other participants sounds pretty cool,” Kaito shrugs, smile optimistic as always, “You’ve always gotta find the bright side of things, y’know? Plus I do a pretty killer Kazuichi Souda impression. I wanna freak some people out.”

“...You already know my opinion. And Tenko agrees,” Himiko mutters. 

“You know mine too. But it doesn’t seem like much of a _choice_ ,” Maki says, “...Also, I was kinda thinking about going back to Japan, anyways. I want to talk to Rie again.”

Quick side note: Rie is Maki’s “past” mom. The group refer to their lives before the flashback lights, their pre-game selves, as their “past lives”. As far as Himiko knew, Maki was the only one who frequently kept ties with her past life. So it made sense the brunette wanted to go back to Japan. And if Maki went, then Kaito would gladly follow. And if Kaito was going, then Shuichi would go, and then Kokichi, then Kaede and then Miu, and the whole group would come tumbling down. 

Himiko runs her hands down her face. This just ruined her day. Nay, her week. Nay, her _year._

“I’m just concerned about the AHL, and everything…” She voices, “It doesn’t feel safe.”

“I didn’t even think about that,” Kaito replies honestly, “I mean… Aren’t the majority of their members also past killing game participants? If _everybody_ is going to this convention, then--”

“The entire Anti-Hope League will be there, as well,” Shuichi finishes, eyebrows lowered in concern.

“...Maybe that’s the goal,” Maki guesses.

The call settles down to a brooding silence.

The uncertainty of the future was what Himiko was so stuck on. The unknown was what was making her feel this anxious, feel this suffocating amount of dread. She would give anything to completely cut ties with Danganronpa, to be rid of the game in its entirety. She was so, so tired of it. 

Why had she agreed to the game in the first place? It was a question that irked her to no end, a question she probably would never have a definitive answer for. And that was what made it worse. The only person who _did_ have the answer had been completely erased from her memory, zapped away by the flashback light. Just like everybody else who was attending this stupid, stupid convention. Attending against their wills, most likely. 

“I think I’m gonna sleep on it,” Shuichi sighs, face dropping with doubt and sincere worry, “Goodnight, guys. Himiko, tell Tenko I said bye?”

The redhead nods, “Yeah, got it. G’night.”

Shuichi signs off. Himiko waves goodbye and follows suit. 

The email sits on her laptop. Staring at her. Mocking her. Team Danganronpa always signs their email with their logo, their jagged, bright red logo. The same logo that had imprisoned her in that killing game, had forced her to watch as the people she cared about were hurt, tortured and slaughtered like animals. The logo that made her into a hollow vessel of false personality, of false talent and ingenuine character traits. The logo that she could say, with confidence, ruined her entire life.

She stares daggers into that same logo, glaring so intensely her vision was starting to blur. She’s made her decision. She refuses to go. Danganronpa would not turn her into some entertainment puppet like it has for every other killing game participant. She will sit that week out with her girlfriend, who will also refuse to go, and do _anything else_ but partake in what Team Danganronpa wants. Himiko will not be some stupid pawn in their global franchise, will not be complicit in any of their marketing schemes to attempt to rebuild their public image after the tragedy of Season 53. Himiko will not submit. Himiko will _not_ surrender. 

Mark Himiko’s words, she will _not_ be attending the Danganronpa Convention. 


	2. this place is not mine (and all is not fine)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> arriving at the cypress hotel! totally not suspicious or dangerous at all! 👍🏻

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the ages are about to be wack as fuck but just know that nobody in the dr1 or dr2 cast is older than 26 lmaoo

“I can not _believe_ you got me to attend the Danganronpa Convention,” Himiko grumbles irritatedly, arms crossed over her hoodie and eyes squinted harshly in front of her.

Shuichi winces sympathetically, rubbing behind his neck, “...In my defense, we didn’t really have much of a choice…”

“Himiko, everything will be okay! I swear!!” Tenko declares, right hand raised in promise as her left hand draws a cross over her heart, “And even if things aren’t, I’ll _make_ it be okay!!”

“That’s a threat,” Kokichi chirps, mouth stuffed with the random candies that had been provided to him. 

They had been picked up from the airport in a black vehicle. The driver, a man who had stood outside of the car with a large sign that told everybody in the airport exactly who they were, only added to the terribly suspicious atmosphere. The six of them (Kaito, Maki, Himiko, Tenko, Shuichi, and Kokichi) sat tensely in the back of the limo, with most of them keeping their arms to their sides. Kokichi notices the food and immediately grabs at it. Hopefully it was free. He hadn’t asked.

Their suitcases were shoved into the back. It was all so formal, all too pretentious and uncasual. The six of them appeared in front of security and this private driver in their sweatpants, completely out of place and rather inappropriately dressed. Himiko has seen Kaito sleep in the outfit he was wearing. Those were his PJs. 

Himiko was tired. Tired yet nervous at the exact same time. The awful part was always the internal debate she had whether her exhaustion was because of her pre-written character, or because she was _actually_ tired. Then came the next dilemma: does she act on this _real_ exhaustion and allow her body to take a break? Or does she fight against the false fatigue implanted into her as a fictional character? 

_Or_ was it the secret third option: jetlag? 

“Does anybody know any other killing game participants there?” Maki asks. She’s taking mental notes, silently calibrating the situation at hand. Making a list of people she can trust. Most of the people Himiko could trust were in the car with her. For Maki, her trust probably didn’t extend past the occupants inside the vehicle. And with Kokichi in the car, even that was a stretch.

“I’ve had a few chats with the Ultimate Detective from Season 27, but other than that, no,” Shuichi shrugs. He’s also tired, but has opted to stay awake while in a vehicle with a random stranger. He checks outside the windows every so often and then checks the map on his phone, ensuring they were taking the same route that Google tells him they should be going. 

The windows themselves were covered with blinds that Shuichi was able to peak out of. From what Himiko could see, they had left the city a while ago. All the windows revealed were a mass of trees and road. The blinds had been pulled down once they entered the vehicle, most certainly for privacy reasons considering how Danganronpa was a much bigger deal in Japan. It was another thing Himiko would have to get used to during the week: unwanted attention. She was an entertainer at her core, even if that part of her character was pre-written, but she couldn’t help but feel overwhelmingly nauseous at the thought of all of these people.

“Hiyoko Saionji blocked me on Twitter,” Kokichi pouts, voice low with false sorrow.

“...I thought we agreed that none of us would use social media?” Himiko says.

“ _You_ agreed,” he corrects.

“On that note, Kokichi, you need to stay close. We all need to stay together,” Shuichi inputs, “Try not to… run off. Like you do.”

Kokichi does that a lot. He has this awful habit of just up and disappearing on them, sometimes for days on end with no contact. It was frightening, at times.

“You got it!! I will never leave your side, not even when you sleep!!” the boy promises.

“So you aren’t going to run off immediately?”

“Nope!!”

“You’re going to stay close to the group and won’t leave without letting us know first?”

“Yup!!”

“Somehow I sincerely doubt that,” Tenko inputs, face scrunching unattractively. 

Kokichi gasps dramatically, slapping his hand over his chest, “You fiend!! You dare call me a _liar?_ We shall duel at dawn, my good fellow!”

Shuichi once again checks the map on his phone as Tenko and Kokichi bicker in the background. If his unchanging facial expression told Himiko anything, they were still on the right path. It gave her slight peace of mind. At least Team Danganronpa wasn’t just flat out kidnapping them. 

_Honestly, with how poorly everything has gone this past week, I wouldn’t be surprised at this point._

She allows herself to yawn, rubbing tiredly at her face and picking gunk out of the corner of her eyes. Her appearance was a massive contrast to the highly professional limo she had been placed in, and would most likely be an even bigger contrast to the hotel they were staying at. As much as she hopes and prays that no other past killing game participant would be there to see her in her baggy sweatpants and pink hoodie with a coffee stain on it, that wish was most likely too outrageous. There’s a small part of her that was too tired to really care, but the rest of her remained incredibly self-conscious. 

Especially since none of her companions knew anybody else there. It just meant she would have to cling onto her girlfriend even harder. It was a good thing Tenko was tall. It meant Himiko could easily hide behind her if she needed to escape any social cues. 

The nerves were not eased by the restlessness of her friends. Tenko was never capable of sitting still, and Himiko couldn’t blame her for that. Kokichi was the same, but instead of attempting to remain in his seat and fidget tirelessly like Tenko was doing, he was standing up and climbing around the seats and grabbing every free thing the limo handed to him. 

“Are we the youngest there? Considering we’re from the most recent season?” she asks drowsily, her words slurred and flowing.

“Well, it depends how long they were in the simulator, I guess,” Shuichi answers, “Your body doesn’t age biologically in cryptosleep, so as long as you were in the game you remained the same age in the outside world. Plus, some of them were, like, actual kids during the simulation. So who knows?”

“I’m sure there are people from the earlier seasons who are around our age. Or maybe in their twenties,” Maki shrugs, “I don’t think they left the simulator for a while. Danganronpa needed them for spin-offs and sequels.”

“Oh, yes!! Like, um… Junko and Kirigiri?” Tenko says. 

Himiko is almost certain she just chose two names from the earliest season and threw them out as examples. Tenko had been trying to learn more about the previous Danganronpa games, just so she had a bit of an idea of what they were headed into. Neither her nor Himiko got necessarily far into the franchise without feeling sick, without the sudden horror of their own killing game rushing straight back at them. They picked up the bare minimum: Junko Enoshima bad. Makoto Naegi good. Future Foundation save world. 

She also knew Tenko was growing more and more excited to meet other “Ultimates”, especially one named Sakura Ogami. Something about her really resonated with Tenko, probably their shared false talents. Himiko couldn’t say she was excited about anything, really. That’s probably why she was having such a hard time. Himiko just couldn’t find the good out of this situation, like her more optimistic counterpart. 

“There’s no way they’re our age,” Kaito has woken up from his quick nap, joining the conversation as if he had always been a part of it, “I’d say they’re in their mid-twenties, max.”

“I’ll bet you on that! Twenty bucks they’re our age!!” Tenko challenges.

Kaito grins, finger pointed directly at her, “You’re on!”

“I think I’m gonna have to agree with Kaito here… twenty-ish sounds reasonable,” Shuichi says.

“Danganronpa’s been on forever. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were elderly,” Maki chuckles lowly, “...Maybe they left the simulation earlier than we think.”

Himiko clutches onto Tenko’s arm, supportively scooting closer to her, “Well, I support my girlfriend!”

“Thank you, my love!” the brunette coos back.

Kokichi gags, his tongue sticking out in revulsion, “Grooooooosssssss….. Shuichi, I’ve changed my mind……. As soon as I get out of this car, I’m ditching this group immediately.”

The car halts abruptly, almost as if cued. Kokichi jokingly gestures, as if motioning to the group that he was actually about to ditch them all.

Shuichi checks the location on his phone, his face hardening in confusion. Without saying anything, the group is able to recognize that they have stopped much earlier than they were supposed to. Kaito yanks at a chain, opening the limousine’s blinds.

They’re greeted by security. It takes Kaito by surprise, who had been sitting very close to the windows. Surrounding their vehicle were a group of men in uniforms, a very familiar Team Danganronpa logo on their chests. They were inspecting every aspect of the outside, checking underneath the car, above the car, and in the gas tank. Himiko was also incredibly certain that two of them were currently investigating the back of the car, which also heavily implies that they were doing security checks through their luggage. It was rather unnecessary, considering they had _just_ left the airport where their baggage had to be checked and then double-checked for anything dangerous. Himiko couldn’t even take a water bottle with her, so what exactly were they expecting to find?

Maki reaches over to shut the blinds, before leaning forward and rather irritatedly knocking against the barrier that divided the driver and the rest of the limo.

“What’s going on?” she demands dangerously.

“Just a security check, kid,” the driver replies, “Remain calm and everything will go by smoothly.”

“Remain--”

The door opens. A security guard without a helmet on rather formally steps into the vehicle, clipboard and pen in his grasp. He does a quick headcount of everyone in the vehicle, runs his pen over his list, and grimaces. Tenko instinctively wraps a protective arm around Himiko, leaning away from the guard.

“Alright, quick roll call,” the guard says, voice firm and unkind, “Shuichi Saihara?”

At first the teenager in question blinks, tired and shocked, but soon recovers, “Yeah, uh, here.”

“Maki Harukawa?”

“Here,” the brunette replies through her teeth.

“Himiko Yumeno?”

“Nyeh?” she mumbles, internally cringing at her prewritten catchphrase, “I’m here.”

As soon as their names were called, the guard checked them off of a list. Team Danganronpa was keeping track of who was there, and who was absent. If Himiko had refused to attend this event, Team Danganronpa would be able to tell. This roll call system had not been implemented the last time Himiko attended one of these conventions. That could just be because this convention was bigger in general, but either way it didn’t sit well with her. 

She was honestly just annoyed, if anything. If Himiko hasn’t mentioned it already, she hates Danganronpa. So screw them for forcing her to attend! And screw them for keeping track of whether or not she was there! ...She _was_ there, so it wasn’t like she was doing anything wrong, but still!!

The guard finishes calling out all of their names, disappointed grimace still very clear on his face.

“Have any of you seen Tsumugi Shirogane recently?” he asks.

The group immediately tenses. Clearly she has not made an appearance before Team Danganronpa yet. Himiko hadn’t seen her since that last trial, since her final goodbye to the Academy for Gifted Juveniles. She wasn’t there when everybody had woken up, had made no appearance at any of their group therapy sessions, and had made no appearance at any of the interviews or press conferences they were forced to attend. Tsumugi was, in every way, shape, and form, gone. As if she had disappeared from the face of the earth. 

Himiko was honestly intrigued about the idea of seeing her again at this convention. It wasn’t excitement, it wasn’t dread, but just general interest in seeing her again. Her opinions on the former Ultimate Cosplayer weren’t as intense or emotionally driven as perhaps Kaede or Kokichi’s opinions were towards her. Himiko wasn’t friends with her, in fact she held quite the heavy distaste towards her, but she was curious to know just what the bluenette was up to. Where she had been hiding all of this time.

Everybody tells the guard no. Nobody has seen Tsumugi Shirogane for quite some time now. Himiko can’t help but notice the look her girlfriend flickers at Shuichi.

The guard hums and takes note of it. Clearly, every other member of the class has already signed in. That means a full week with the entire class present, except for Tsumugi. That means a full week of Miu and Kokichi undoubtedly butting heads. That means a full week of Ryoma and Kirumi staring awkwardly at each other. That means a full week of Korekiyo.

The kids are asked to exit the car so the guards could search for any dangerous items on their bodies or in the vehicle. After a rather tense ten minutes of being pat down, a rather invasive experience that ultimately proved to be fruitless for the guards, the group is allowed back into the limo to continue their journey to the Cypress Hotel.

Everybody is too confused to speak.

-=+=-

The second time the car stops, about ten minutes from their last stop, they’re in a parking lot.

Maki opens the blinds again and allows sunlight to pour into the dark vehicle, causing the residents in the car to hiss and recoil at the sudden light. They had gotten used to sitting, solemnly, in the darkness of the limousine. Like a bunch of vampires.

The occupants of the car finally take the opportunity to stretch out their legs after sitting down for hours on end. Kokichi, true to his word, is the first one out the door. The car park was almost entirely empty, save for a few scattered vehicles, making the area appear abandoned and rather apocalyptic for a hotel parking lot. It’s a gated area, with the only entrance from the road being through the security check they had just passed through. As far as Himiko could see, there was no other building in the general area, besides the Cypress Hotel itself.

Himiko could see the hotel in the distance, just a quick jog up the hill from where the parking lot is. It’s a white building with golden architectural embellishments, rather grand and formal looking. The dark green hedges were trimmed and clearly well kept, the road leading upwards seemingly new and much smoother than the highways they had driven down from the airport. 

Himiko couldn’t help but look at it and feel insufferable dread. She’s begun biting her lip already, had started gnawing at it while in the limo, and was now beginning to peel off skin. All she could do was move forward, she supposes. There was no turning back now. Even if she wanted to get back in the car, it was no longer an option. As soon as the driver had finished unpacking their suitcases from the back of the vehicle, he wished them all a sharp farewell and drove off, past the security check, past the gate, and back down the highway, presumably never to be seen again.

Real comforting. Thank you, random limousine driver, for making this experience so enjoyable.

Himiko takes the time to check in her own luggage, just in case the guards at the gate touched anything. Nothing seemed to be stolen, but it was glaringly obvious that they had searched through it.

She’s definitely nervous. Her hands were beginning to vibrate. Himiko really hates how out of control her anxiety made her, how her body starts shaking violently and makes it glaringly obvious that she’s nervous. 

“Oh, you must be the Season 53 group!”

The group flips around towards the source of the call. Approaching them from the direction of the hotel was a group of three, led by a relatively short man with mousy brown hair and washed-out hazel eyes. He nervously adjusts his brown collar, tugging his dark green sweater down to appear more tidy. He's apparently been given a name tag, a pasty white sticker stuck to the right of his chest, with a label so small that Himiko could not read it from that distance. Trailing behind him was a woman around his age with long, lilac hair, joined by another blonde man with rectangular glasses.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you all!” the first man introduces, amicably shaking Shuichi’s hand, “I’m Makoto Naegi, the Ultimate Lucky Student. I’m here to help you guys out!” 

Himiko very visibly perks up. She actually knows him!! She actually knows this man!! He’s the leader of the fictional “Future Foundation”, the protagonist of the first ever Danganronpa, and probably the only person she will actually be able to recognize from this sea of people. He was the teenager who won the very first killing game. The proclaimed “hero” of this entire series. He surely didn’t look like much of a “hero” type, if Himiko was to be brutally honest. Makoto was lanky, rather timid and short compared to the mass of legs with glasses that stood next to him. Nothing about his external appearance necessarily showed strength, but Himiko knew all too well that some heroes didn’t need to rely on brawns, but rather a strong, unwavering mental attitude. Luckily for Himiko, she had neither!

“Oh!” Shuichi exclaims in initial shock, recognizing his name along with Himiko, “Right, I’m Shuichi Saihara. The…. Ultimate Detective, I guess.”

The blonde behind Makoto flashes the woman with the lilac hair a grin. The woman was unresponsive, her fist raised to her chin in deep thought as she glanced at each of Himiko’s friends. Himiko side-steps behind Tenko, avoiding her gaze. 

“Another Ultimate Detective! We’ve heard great things about you!” Makoto conveys cheerfully, gesturing at the lilac woman, “Kyoko here is also an Ultimate Detective.”

Kyoko nods fondly, however stoically. 

“And this is Byakuya Togami, the Ultimate Affluent Progeny. He’ll be coordinating most of the events.”

The blonde behind Makoto, now named Byakuya, spares the group a simple wave and nothing more. For such a friendly and otherwise cheerful guy, Makoto sure knew how to pick up the most expressionless companions. 

Maki inconspicuously leans over towards Kaito, never diverting her gaze from Makoto and company, muttering something under her breath. Kaito nods subtly.

“Do you have any clue what that security check was about?” He asks on Maki’s behalf, rather abruptly and with no introduction.

“We’ve been told it’s just protocol,” Makoto answers, ruffling his hair with a sheepish smile, “They just want to make sure everything’s--”

“With the AHL undoubtedly being in the same building, it only makes sense for them to check for weapons and explosives,” Byakuya interrupts acutely, eyebrows furrowed. 

Kaito blanches, “Woah, you-- You really think somebody’s gonna try to--”

“Oh, no, no, no! Please, don’t worry!” Makoto quickly backtracks, hands waving in front of him, “You’re completely safe here! And we’re pretty sure Team Danganronpa sent us the security guards only to do a quick luggage check.”

“ _Pretty sure_ is not the same as _sure,”_ Maki deadpans, untrusting and cold.

Makoto’s smile twitches downwards awkwardly for a brief moment. He glances around the parking lot, noticing how the teenager’s tired yet frightened eyes stared directly back at him, like deers caught in headlights. He locks onto Himiko for a second, staring at the redhead, who was basically hiding behind her girlfriend with her shaky hands held tightly behind her back. With a concerned sigh, Makoto allows his overwhelmingly optimistic demeanor to drop slightly.

“I understand you’re all nervous,” he says cautiously, “It’s understandable. You guys are probably the youngest ones here--”

Flippantly, Kaito shoots a snarky look over at Tenko, knowing he has just won the bet. Tenko scowls deeply back at him.

“--But I promise that we’ll do everything to make you feel comfortable here,” Makoto continues, unaware of their interaction, “Everybody here is very lovely, and very excited to meet you!”

“I don’t think it’s _them_ we’re necessarily worried about…” Shuichi chuckles awkwardly, rubbing his sweaty hands against each other. 

Makoto follows where Shuichi’s eyes have traveled to, staring outwards at the security check they had been stopped at. Makoto knew that it wasn’t the last time any of the group was going to see this form of security, as they were most likely also stationed within the hotel, so there wasn’t much he could say that would really ease any of their fears.

“It’s okay to feel uneasy. But just remember, we’re all in the same boat,” Kyoko says, taking over for the voiceless Makoto, “We’ve all gone through _a_ killing game, however varied.”

 _I guess that’s true,_ Himiko supposes. Even her thoughts were drowsy and laced with dread, _But at least her season isn’t universally hated._

The teenagers glance around at each other, as if confirming that everybody was okay with continuing. There was heavy reluctance between practically every single one of them, but nonetheless they had to keep going.

“Are we ready to head up?” Makoto questions politely, smile wide, “We’ll show you around!”

As the gang grabbed at their suitcases, yanking the handles up and beginning to roll their luggage up the hill, Kaito clears his throat.

“Say, Makoto. How old are you?” he asks rather suddenly.

Makoto blinks, obviously startled by such a random question, “Me? Oh, um, 24?”

Kaito claps his hands together, pointing at Tenko in cocky celebration. Tenko scrunches her nose, her mouth curling unpleasantly downwards. Makoto and his two friends stare at them with clear confusion, eyebrows raised at the group of teenagers as many of them giggle and tell Kaito and Tenko to stop acting so childishly. Maki, embarrassed yet oddly proud at the same time, has to stop Kaito before he begins victory dancing in the middle of the parking lot.

After she’s finished scowling, Tenko very awkwardly shuffles back to Himiko’s side as the rest of the group begin dragging their luggage up towards the hotel.

“...Mimi?” she sings innocently.

“...Yes, babe?” Himiko replies with the same vocality.

After a beat of guilty silence, Tenko finally continues with a timid, “...Can I borrow 20 dollars? I don’t have my wallet on me.”

-=+=-

The hotel lobby was, simply put, grand. 

Reception was filled with white marble, gold accenting and a crystal chandelier hanging dangerously over their heads as they entered. Each reception desk held numbers on them, 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, so on and so forth. And on top of each desk, more clipboards and pens for them to check their attendance. 

The reception was not as full as Himiko had previously been expecting, only holding about ten receptionists and a few scattered killing game participants here and there. Two of the most recognizable included a man with bright pink hair attempting to assist another man with smuggling a white mouse out of his suitcase and into his jacket pocket. There was also somebody in the shadows who looked incredibly familiar, who looked exactly like a certain anthropologist with long hair. 

Before Himiko could react to his presence, Makoto steps in front of the group, blocking Korekiyo’s shadow from view.

“And here we have the hotel lobby!” Makoto presents, arms gestured widely in welcome, “Each day we’re going to meet here and sign in by grabbing one of these guys--” He taps against his sticker nametag, which displays his name and Ultimate Talent, “Just so we don’t lose anybody! Also it helps with remembering names! There’s a whole ton of people here.”

Makoto was really good at making the situation sound pleasant. Invasive acts of surveillance were played off casually as “fun nametags” so they “don’t lose any campers on the campgrounds”.

“You guys sign in over here!” He directs, walking the exhausted group of teenagers over towards one of the last reception desks. 

Kokichi is the first to run up, grabbing one of the two pens on the desk and quickly locating his name on the attendance sheet. Maki grabs the other one. They want to get this tour over quickly so that they can finally sleep. 

Himiko peeks over their shoulders as more people, presumably from Seasons 50-52, join them at the reception desk to sign in. The tiny redhead is basically swamped in the sudden group of participants, all of whom seemingly don’t know what personal space was. Back up, people!! Himiko is small and pretty claustrophobic!! 

“The events will start tomorrow after the main ceremony!” It's Makoto’s voice that she had suddenly been fixated on, the rest of her attention spacing out. He was chatting with Shuichi, who nodded along attentively, “We’ve got a ton of fun things planned! I’m especially excited about the Talent Swap! It’s this competition where we place people in groups, and they have to come up with a performance that doesn’t involve their own Ultimate Talents! I think that--”

Himiko’s attention is broken as another participant walks up to the desk she was waiting in line for, blocking Makoto and Shuichi from view. She blinks again and Tenko is gone, no longer next to her. Everybody around her is so noisy. Panic rises up through her throat and rings in her ears. 

Himiko finally reaches the reception desk. She reaches for the pen. Somebody else grabs for it at the same time. Himiko looks up at her opponent, realizing with hardened ire that it was Korekiyo. 

The former Ultimate Anthropologist was clad in a dark hoodie and sweatpants, casual like the rest of Himiko’s group was, presumably dressing comfortably because of the long distance he had to travel to get there. Half of his face was still covered in a mask, however this one was simply black and held none of the accessories his old one did. He must not have arrived with the other half of the group, considering how every other member of their class had already signed in much earlier than Korekiyo had. His sharp yellow eyes stare at Himiko with initial shock, before morphing into discomfort and awkwardness. 

Both hands recoil, allowing the other to use the pen first.

“After you,” Korekiyo says, gestures small and insignificant. 

“No, no. After you,” Himiko offers right back.

“No, you may use it first, I insi--”

Her jaw tenses, expression hardening the longer she stared at him, “I’ll wait.”

They stare uncomfortably at each other. It takes much longer than it should have for Korekiyo to begin reaching, excruciatingly slowly, for the pen. 

Deep down, Himiko has already accepted the fact that things will never not be awkward with Korekiyo. Even before the whole… _Sister_ thing… the pair had just never gotten along. If she was going to be honest, she had thought he was really creepy before the third trial of the killing game, and tended not to interact with him that often. But after the third trial, after he revealed himself to be this horrifying serial killer whose only motive to kill was so that he could appease an already deceased family member, Himiko just simply hasn’t looked at him the same. She doubts anybody else has, either.

In some ways, it was quite hypocritical. Himiko could say she was friends with Maki, who had been prewritten as an assassin with probably hundreds of confirmed kills under her belt. She was amicable with Kokichi, who had caused nothing but entropy and havoc during the killing game and indirectly sent a few of his classmates to their deaths, as well. So surely Korekiyo should be extended that same courtesy, right? 

It wasn’t hatred. Himiko knew what hate felt like, knew how far her anger could go, and her feelings towards Korekiyo wasn’t it. It was this tense, uncomfortable distaste that lingered in her chest and left a toxic taste in her mouth. She could make excuses all she wanted about why she didn’t like Korekiyo; His aura always left her on edge and anxious, something about his unchanged appearance struck unpleasant familiarity within her, his golden eyes always made her feel threatened and rather unsafe, and they had barely talked to each other outside of the simulator. But when it really came down to it, Himiko had become so accustomed to feeling awkward around the teenager that she couldn’t imagine ever growing close to him.

And she wouldn’t be caught dead hanging around him while Tenko and Angie were nearby. All three of them were fairly stubborn in that sense, none of them necessarily keen on handing out or accepting apologies.

As soon as Korekiyo sets down the pen, Himiko snatches it perhaps a little too harshly, signs her name, grabs her nametag, and quickly leaves. A heavy feeling sinks into her stomach. 

_Guilt?_

There was something about Korekiyo that made her feel bad, as well. Made her feel bad for him. Something tired and traumatized behind his eyes that she couldn’t bear to analyze without feeling deep sympathy for him.

Even before Himiko reaches Tenko and the group again, Korekiyo has already disappeared into another horde of people. Probably for the best. Tenko might react a little more emotionally to the teenager. 

“Everything okay?” the brunette asks, supportively squeezing Himiko’s hand. The redhead replies with a strained smile and a nod, which apparently was all Tenko needed. Still, holding the brunette’s hand made Himiko feel a little better. More attached. 

Her friends were growing more at ease within the hotel. Maki and Kaito were gawking in awe at the sheer fanciness of the building they were going to live in for a week, free of any cost. Shuichi had been chatting away with Makoto and Kyoko, and it seems Kokichi has already made friends with the pair of participants who were smuggling the rodent into the hotel. Considering the sly wink Kokichi gave them, it was likely he wouldn’t tell anybody about the illegal mouse that would live amongst the killing game participants. 

“Looking good? Everybody have their nametags?” Makoto double-checks, scanning the group to make sure they’ve all checked in successfully. It kinda made Himiko feel like she was on a school trip, or something, “Awesome! Let’s continue with the tour!”

As the group once more explodes into chatter, excited and nervous about the massive hotel they were staying at, Himiko takes one last look behind her. Korekiyo takes a long look at her group, scribbles something down in a leather-bound notebook, and disappears down a hallway. 

It was basically official at that point. Himiko was not going to enjoy this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everything looks totally fine! :) can't wait for this totally not suspicious event! :) :)


	3. i disagree everything's going how it's meant to be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the tour ends quite abruptly. himiko makes a friend(?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just wanted to take second to thank you all for being so supportive of this project fdjkshk like im two chapters in and already the support has just been amazing thank you!! <333 
> 
> i hope you enjoy! :D

No matter how tired Himiko was, the tour did not stop.

They dropped their baggage off in their hotel rooms, hopeful that they would finally be able to rest, but Makoto was just getting started. He had a few other groups to escort around the building, meaning he had to finish their tour as quickly as possible. No stopping. No moment for Himiko to catch her breath. 

Byakuya had escaped from the group quite some time ago, busy with more important matters, and Kirigiri was so vigilant and quiet that it was like she wasn’t even there. Kokichi had told the group he had to use the bathroom twenty minutes ago, and has not returned since then. It is clear the teenager has already broken his promise to Shuichi, abandoning the group.

Himiko is very tempted to follow suit. Usually when she has a bad feeling about something it doesn't leave until after she's slept on it. And considering how Makoto is not allowing them to rest in their hotel rooms, the likelihood of this gnawing feeling in her stomach going away is getting lesser and lesser. Every person she passes is only a blaring reminder of the killing game they had just emerged from, a startling jab at the corporation that's trapped her and her friends seemingly forever. And to make matter _worse,_ nobody else seemed to be as worried. Every killing game participant that passed by her was smiling, patting each other on the back. Laughing and giggling with each other as if the very game that had brought them together hadn't been the main source of their trauma and suffering. It was unnerving, the feeling of dread sitting heavily in Himiko's stomach. It made her sick.

The group follows Makoto mutely as he leads them through the floor with the rooms they slept in, through the large dining hall with a bar in the back corner that none of them were allowed to drink at yet, through the pool area with a few tents set up for first aid (directed by a rather timid nurse who was quite visibly alarmed as Makoto waved to her), and finally to the self-proclaimed “hallway of ballrooms”. 

“This hotel was built for major events like this, so we’ve been given a few ballrooms! The main ballroom is the Black Rose Ballroom, right here!” Makoto announces, pushing open two double doors. 

The group ooh and aah as they enter the magnificent ballroom, its regality dulled by the foldable chairs that were arranged in rows for a considerably large audience. The stage was being set up by a group of volunteers, men and women who were assisting with moving microphones and adjusting a massive banner with the words ‘WELCOME DANGANRONPA PARTICIPANTS!’ on it. The banner was more unnerving than welcoming.

Each chair has a name attached to it. It must have taken _forever_ for the volunteers to stick a piece of paper on the hundreds of chairs. Himiko’s season, Season 53, had its own little section. Way in the back. Where the short people of the season would undoubtedly struggle to see.

“This is where we’ll be holding the opening ceremonies tomorrow, and it’s also the main performance stage for now,” Makoto smiles awkwardly, tugging at his collar sheepishly, “We have another ballroom that’s been set up as a theatre-in-the-round, but, uh… We seem to have lost the key for it.”

“You can’t enter?” Shuichi clarifies.

“Nope! Actually, this is the only ballroom that’s unlocked, haha… We’ve got no clue who’s been locking the doors… But Byakuya had people on that, so don’t worry about it!”

“The theatre-in-the-round was supposed to hold the props for any combat-based talents, so unfortunately you will have to wait until we open that, Tenko,” Kyoko apologizes. 

Tenko blinks at the mention of her name, “Oh! And Ma--”

Before Tenko is able to say Maki’s name, the latter quickly flashes her a low, yet dangerous look. Tenko’s face visibly scrunches in confusion, but soon realizes just what she was requesting of her. If Himiko were to squint at Maki’s nametag, it was clear she wished to hide something. _Maki Harukawa,_ the nametag read, _Ultimate Child Caregiver._ The only people who would know she was written as an assassin were those who thoroughly watched the entire season.

“...Nevermind!” Tenko quickly corrects, “Yes, I can wait, Ms. Kirigiri!!”

Her rather pathetic attempt at a coverup does not go unnoticed by the original Ultimate Detective, but Kyoko once more returns to silence.

“Follow me backstage! And be careful of the volunteers!” Makoto continues, marching onwards.

Makoto leads the group onto the stage, a wide rectangle of space that allowed a variety of performances to take place, however it was currently incredibly empty. A few volunteers passed by with lighting equipment, hauling lighting fixtures over their shoulders and taping electrical wires down to the floor to reduce tripping hazards in the wings. After a short demonstration of the wide space that was available to them, he finally moves them backstage.

Backstage was even larger than onstage. Instruments of every kind lined the walls, multiple props for increasingly theatrical acts covered in black cloth or behind curtains. Aerial silks hung from the ceiling for an Ultimate Acrobat or an Ultimate Gymnast, guitars of all kinds and shapes were attached to the wall for perhaps an Ultimate Musician, a massive grand piano was sitting politely in the corner for an Ultimate Pianist. None of Himiko’s group could look at it without cringing, couldn’t bear to stare at it for too long without a hideous feeling sinking into their stomachs. 

_Has Kaede already taken this tour?_ As soon as the thought comes to her, Himiko has to avert her attention from the musical instrument. That couldn’t have been pleasant for the blonde. Himiko could see a few of her friends already making mental notes to confer with Kaede about it once they finally met up. Maki, however, was preoccupied with thoroughly examining every corner of the backstage area.

Shuichi had texted Kaede a while back that they had finally arrived. According to Kaede, all of the boys were in Ryoma and Gonta’s room while the girls chilled in Kirumi and Angie’s. Korekiyo had not joined them. 

It almost relaxes Himiko, in a way. Was that awful to say? That she doesn't want Korekiyo around? Now that she's bouncing the phrase back and forth in her brain, it does sound quite harsh. She certainly would feel quite attacked if somebody told her that they didn't want her around. Or maybe she had a right to not want to be around Korekiyo? Do you have to have a solid reason not to hang around somebody? If you weren't too rude about it, do you really need to explain yourself if the other person makes you uncomfortable? If the other person brings back horrible memories? Do you need a good reason to not forgive somebody? Was it even her place _not_ to forgive him? 

It makes her head hurt. And distracts her, for quite a bit.

“We’ve got basically every instrument here!” Makoto says, “Feel free to try them out, but just make sure you sign your name when you take anything! We want to make sure nothing gets ta--”

“What the hell is that?” Maki very suddenly hisses, turning sharply to the right.

Himiko follows where Maki’s gaze had gone and immediately gasps, recoiling backwards with the rest of her group. 

Directly to the class’s right was Monokuma. Or, at least, an inanimate object that very closely resembled Monokuma. It sat lazily on top of a black and red circus ball, blending in almost perfectly with the Danganronpa color scheme of the backstage area. Silently staring at them. Unmoving and voiceless. 

There’s not a single member of the group who didn’t immediately tense at the monochromatic bear, not a single member who did not sharply inhale or back away in adrenaline-induced defense. Himiko’s eyes have widened dramatically, pupils dilating and breath hitching deep in her throat. Who put that there? _Who put that there?_ Monokuma shouldn’t be here because she wasn’t in the academy and she was in real life and she _wasn’t in the simulation._ He shouldn’t be here because she should be _safe_ . Makoto promised it was _safe_ here. Here was real, here was _not_ the simulation where she watched her friends die and be tortured and executed. So Monokuma shouldn’t be here. _Why_ was he here? 

Even Makoto seemed alarmed. He was frozen, the same fear splashed across his facial expression, except considerably more hollow. Less jumpy and panicked like the Season 53 class was. His initial shock slowly morphs into disdain, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion and general vexation.

“I’m… so sorry. I have no idea who--” he cuts himself off, walking intently towards the bear. He grabs it with his fingers, holding it by the ear as if it was toxic to the touch. 

A few volunteers who were working backstage notice him holding it and cringe also, holding the exact same memories of the horrid animatronic. One volunteer, with black hair layered over an underside of blue and pink and purple hair dye, the hairstyle having been cut into a rather punk mullet, rips her attention away from the wall of guitars with a gasp. Whining guiltily, she quickly shuffles over to Makoto and grabs the bear from him. The volunteer that was with her, a petite lady with yellow hair tugged into a messy ponytail, sighs heavily and follows.

“Oh no! Oh no, Ibuki is so sorry!” the first volunteer quickly apologizes. Her voice sounded _incredibly_ similar to Tenko’s, “I found it in the prop cupboard and was going to get rid of it, but the guitars are very distracting! Here, let me--”

She drops Monokuma before punting him rather flippantly behind a drum set. The bear slams against the wall before slumping over, back turned to the crew. A few members of her group relaxed slightly _,_ but Himiko just couldn’t stop staring at it with wide and alert eyes. She didn’t trust this place. It feels heavy when she breathes, her ribs caging her lungs and reducing her intake of oxygen.

Makoto takes a deep breath before his smile immediately snaps back, almost as if Monokuma had never been there in the first place, “Right! Well, um… Very sorry about that, guys! We weren’t expecting--”

“I am so sorry, really!” the punk lady, Ibuki, apologizes profusely, bowing ever so slightly, “Ibu-- _I_ didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Himiko was straining her brain in an attempt to remember just who this person was. _Ibuki Mioda,_ her nametag read, _Ultimate Musician._ She was definitely from one of the earlier seasons. Season Two? Three? One? All Himiko could remember was that she was generally liked and was supposedly very loud. If this interaction told her anything, perhaps her boisterous personality had been slightly muted over the years.

The group hesitantly accepts her apology. It was an honest mistake, Himiko supposes, however she couldn’t help but wonder why the bear was in the prop cupboard in the first place.

“It’s all good, Ibuki!” Makoto replies. They must know each other, “While you’re here, actually, let me introduce you to the 53rd class! From right to left, we have--”

“Oh, is this the Season 53 group!?” for a lady with such a rocker appearance, including multiple ear, nose, and chin piercings, she seemed rather sweet, “Alright, which one of you is the robot??”

The group share a look before Shuichi responds, “U-Uh, none of us, actually. K1-B0 is in the process of being rebuilt. I think Miu has the prototype with her?”

“Aw, cool!! There’s a robot in the building??” Ibuki immediately perks up, her remorseful mood quickly overcome with excitement, “I’m gonna go find this Miu person and make my very first robot friend!”

“Oh, wait, Ibuki-- I haven’t introduced--”

Before Makoto could finish, Ibuki was already speeding out of the backstage area, “I’ll see you later!!”

The blonde that Ibuki left behind huffs rather shakily, probably also slightly taken aback by Monokuma, “Weirdo. Sorry, Makoto. You know how distracted she gets, it’s just a part of her cha--”

“No, no, it’s okay, Hiyoko! I really didn’t take any--”

“Hiyoko Saionji?” Kaito questions, “I think I know you! You blocked my friend on Twitter!”

Hiyoko raises a suspicious eyebrow, her amber eyes narrowed. A beat passes by in complete silence as the girl stares at Kaito, obviously not understanding just what he was referring to. Rather confused, Hiyoko slowly turns back towards Makoto without answering.

“The cameras are set up for the live show,” she says. _Live show?_ Himiko hadn’t been warned about anything being filmed or recorded, “So don’t go touching anything with your grubby hands. Those things took hours to set up.”

Himiko checks for cameras. The cameras in question must have been the rather massive machines in two corners of the room, machines so huge that there was no way it was _just_ a camera. Or, maybe, the bigger the camera, the better the quality.

“Thank you! If you run into Byakuya, let him know too!” Makoto says gratefully, “Oh, would you like me to introduce you to--”

“No,” Hiyoko replies, zooming out of the backstage area. It seems her volunteer work has been completed for the day, and she would much rather go back to sleep than talk to a bunch of high schoolers. Which was fair. Himiko would have done the same, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t rude.

Noticing how the class had grown rather on edge once more, most of them huddling close to each other with suspicious eyes and tense shoulders, Makoto quickly resumes his peppy tour guide demeanor. Kyoko glides over to stand by his side, supportively placing her hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s move on?” she requests.

“Yes! Good idea, let’s do that! There’s still some more to see!”

All Himiko can muster is a tense, “Uh…”

She is uncomfortable. Himiko didn’t necessarily have to voice that out loud for people to understand. Her hands have remained clenched by her sides for quite some time now. 

“We’ve already discussed instruments with Kaede, who was the Ultimate Pianist, I believe? Art supplies and the like are in the storage room for the Ultimate Artist… And--” Makoto’s eyes twinkle with a sudden thought, “Oh! One of you is the Ultimate Magician, right? We have some equipment for you over here!”

The group turns to Himiko excitedly. The redhead spares a weak grin back at them.

Himiko doesn’t consider herself the Ultimate Magician anymore. Honestly, it was kinda weird that Makoto referred to himself as the Ultimate Lucky Student when he knows, or _should_ know, that his talent was a lie implanted into him for entertainment. Himiko knew how to do magic tricks, which she now understands are not real and don’t hold any actual magic, but she would never refer to herself as the Ultimate Magician. Just like Maki wouldn’t call herself the Ultimate Assassin or Kokichi wouldn’t call himself the Ultimate Supreme Leader. Their titles were outdated, fiction and undeserved. 

Was Team Danganronpa expecting her to perform magic tricks? She hasn't tried to do anything too complex outside of the simulator, and has only done some simple card and hat tricks to impress at parties. Nothing as intricate like sawing herself in half or summoning a flock of birds from her coat. She _knows_ how to do it, the flashback light had given her the knowledge of how to perform those tricks, but it wasn’t as well rehearsed or practiced as it had been in the simulator. Also, Himiko will absolutely not be performing those tricks for Danganronpa. She performs simple card tricks for her girlfriend because they make her smile. That is it. 

Himiko sincerely doubts anything behind that curtain would make her change her mind. She finds herself nervous, severely worried. Her body was anticipating something bad to happen, like every tiny event that led to this moment had piled on top of her tiny frame.

Despite this, Makoto still shuffles rather excitedly over towards a large red curtain in the back, “Here it is!”

Theatrically, the Ultimate Lucky Student yanks the screen back. He doesn’t seem to understand just what exactly he had revealed to them, instead focusing on the miniature props splayed out on a table.

But behind the table is the tank. It’s the water tank. The Underwater Escape Trick. 

It’s the final straw. The tour abruptly ends with Himiko turning on her heels and exiting the backstage area.

-=+=-

Okay. At this point, Team Danganronpa must have a personal vendetta against them. 

It wasn’t just the tank that sent Himiko running out onto the stage and out of the Black Rose Ballroom. It was everything before that. Monokuma making a startling reappearance, Korekiyo greeting _her_ out of all people at the reception, the suspicious security check, the smothering cheerfulness that Makoto was trying to use as a coverup. It was too much. She didn’t have the energy to shove it behind her, so now it has risen up through her throat and shaken her to her very core.

It was most likely that Makoto didn’t understand. Himiko couldn’t expect him to have watched every single season of Danganronpa and remember exactly what happened in each of them, and she doesn’t blame him for not remembering such a small character such as her own. He seemed genuinely excited to show her. He must have expected her to show the same enthusiasm towards her Ultimate Talent like he or Kyoko did. He wasn’t _intentionally_ trying to reveal a key component in a murder trial, a trial that she was the main suspect of for the duration, a trial that would have gone by so much quicker if she hadn’t been so stupid and selfish and _naive_ about her stupid magic tricks. He wasn’t trying to remind her of the corpse that had been discovered under her watch, during her magic show. 

There’s no way Makoto understood the sheer amount of guilt that collapsed in on her as soon as he opened the curtain.

She’s trembling violently, unable to stop herself from shaking. Her legs feel remarkably weak and numb, like she could collapse at any moment. There’s one advantage to being short: the distance between her head and the ground was much safer than if she collapsed at 6 feet. Eventually she turns into the women’s restroom on the same floor, noticing the lock on the door and quickly using it. Tenko would be looking for her and she would much rather be alone right now. 

Why did she agree to this, again? She should have fought harder. Should have lied to Team Danganronpa, made up some terminal illness that herself and Tenko had both tragically caught that forbade them from attending the convention. If Tenko had felt the same amount of dread that Himiko had, the same foreboding weight in her stomach that warned her of danger, she would have fought harder. She would have done everything to make sure they were both safe. Himiko should have done that, but she didn’t. And now she’s stuck here for a week, trembling uselessly in the women’s bathroom until she can get her brain and her body to cooperate.

She’s in control of her breathing, at least. She’s just willing herself not to cry. Glaring at the mirror and internally screaming at herself not to cry. _Do not_ cry. 

Staring at herself in the mirror just made her more self-conscious. She’s always had bags under her eyes, even in the simulation, but outside of the killing game they’ve just gotten worse. Not even the concealer in her purse could hide them. Curse Danganronpa for making her so insecure, because there was only so much more to nitpick outside of the game; Her teeth were more crooked and probably needed braces, her skin was less clear, her hair more wavy and less manageable. Her shakiness really brought it all together in one anxious, sweaty mess of a person.

It takes her maybe a solid two minutes of trying to calm herself down before Himiko notices the other person in the bathroom. 

To be fair, the other person probably didn’t notice either. Her sharp green eyes stared directly at herself in the mirror, squinting harshly. Her dark hair was chopped to her neck, voluminous despite looking pretty unkempt, her pale skin practically flawless. All of her clothing was baggy and covered basically her entire body, excluding above her chin. If Himiko was to give this mystery lady an age she would probably guess about two or three years above her own. If Himiko were to take another guess, it would appear she did not survive the simulator. She was leaning against a cane for support. Kirumi did the same when she had the strength to stand from her wheelchair. 

This girl could have genuinely been a model, yet she was glaring at herself in the mirror, analyzing her own eyes intently. Squinting as if she wasn't a walking magazine advertisement. Beneath her, a bottle of eyedrops and a face mask. 

“Hey, look at me and be honest,” the girl turns towards Himiko, dismissing the mental breakdown that the redhead was experiencing currently, “Do I _look_ high?”

A very long pause.

Himiko blinks in sheer confusion, “U-Uh… no?”

“Okay, good. This shit was, like, super expensive,” the girl grabs the bottle and gestures it towards Himiko, “Here, girlie.” 

Himiko stares at the bottle that was being extended towards her, “Oh-- No, I-I couldn’t take that, it--”

“It’s whatever. I’ve got a ton of it in my room, anyways.”

Hesitantly, Himiko accepts the bottle of eyedrops, her hands still trembling. Now that she’s turned back to the mirror, her eyes did look quite bloodshot and red. Might as well use it, now that this lady has offered.

Once she’s used the eyedrops, missing her eyes multiple times due to how shaky her hands were, she returns the bottle back with a grateful hum. The other girl grabs it without acknowledging it, rubbing at her face hatefully. She’s concerned about bags under her eyes as well.

“Here,” Himiko says, grabbing the concealer from her purse and handing it over to make up the favor. 

“Aw, thanks!” 

The girl misses the concealer bottle the first time, but manages to grab it the second. She seems slightly unfocused. Now that Himiko wasn’t as completely out of it, one question zips through her mind. Who is this girl? She seemed oddly familiar, or at least her face does. Himiko had tried to memorize Danganronpa participants by their hair style, simply because each of them were so unique, but came to realize quite quickly that nobody actually keeps their hair the same after the simulation ends. Not even Himiko herself kept her same hair, she had dyed it a strawberry blonde in an attempt to conceal her identity. The only exception to this rule was probably Makoto and his crew, who apparently have not changed at all.

Even if her face looked familiar, there was no telling just how much of this mystery girl had changed. Her hair may be completely different from the simulation, and she was definitely wearing contacts. But something about her seemed familiar, like she was somebody important.

“What season?”

Himiko stammers for a second at the abrupt question, “Huh?”

“What season are you from?” the girl repeats.

“Oh. Um, Season 53? I-I’m Himiko Yumeno, by the way…” since she’s here, she might as well _try_ to make new friends. Makoto had told her the other killing game participants weren’t that bad, “U-Um, the Ultimate Magician.”

Himiko just now noticed this lady wasn’t wearing a nametag. There was sticky residue left over on her shirt, which means she had signed in and taken a sticker, but the mystery girl had ripped it off at some point.

The girl in question stares at Himiko in the mirror, freezing in place. The concealer has been dotted under her eyes, but she’s too busy staring at the redhead to blend.

“You… don’t know who I am?” she questions, voice low. 

Himiko feels a sharp chill run up her spine, “U-Uh… no? S-Sorry, I haven’t watched… many of the seasons….”

There's a solid beat where the girl just stares her down through the mirror, expression blank and borderline unreadable. Not that Himiko was great at reading faces, anyways. It usually takes her a bit longer to, as Kokichi had put it once, “read the room”. 

The girl suddenly turns towards Himiko, hand extended. Her nails had been painted a deep red, but it looks like she’s been peeling the paint off.

“Sakine Hujomon,” she introduces a little too quickly, “The Ultimate…. Chess Player.”

“H-Hujomon? Is that Japanese?” Himiko asks, shaking the other girl’s hand. 

“Who knows? Not like it’s real, anyways.”

Himiko allows herself to giggle. It wasn’t often that her friends joked about their identities not being real. It was a sore subject that was way too fresh for a lot of people. 

Sakine turns back towards the mirror, blending the concealer with her index finger, “So, Himiko, what floor are you on?”

“Me? O-Oh, um, seventh. I-I haven’t been there much, though. We just got here.”

“Oh, ew, are you on tour right now? Which one of those Future Foundation freaks is your tour guide?”

Himiko grins slightly, her shakiness calming slightly, “It’s Makoto and Kyoko… And Byakuya was there for a little bit, but he left…”

“ _Pfft--_ You got the holy fuckin’ trinity! Good luck to you,” Sakine shortles bitterly, “Those hope bastards wouldn’t know what _reality_ was if it hit ‘em across the face.”

Himiko chortles once more. Yeah, she was kinda right.

“They’re still _nice,_ I guess…” Himiko is much more still, her voice much steadier, “But I’ve had a bad feeling ever since I came here…. I really didn’t want to come back.”

Sakine finishes blending, turning back towards the redhead, “ _Thank_ you! God! You’re, like, the only person who’s actually said that out loud. Everybody else here is acting like this is their bar mitzvah, or something.”

“Y-Yeah! It’s freaky, right? I thought everybody else would be just as ada-- adatme---ada--”

“Adamant?” she suggests.

“Yeah. Adamant on not going as I was.”

Sakine leans against the bathroom sink, her pose casual and unconcerned, “Right? But they gave us no choice. Like, I tried to skip out on this convention but they came to my house and basically _forced_ me to come.”

“They _came_ to your house?”

“Ugh, they wanted me to get here early so I could sign a few forms or whatever but I told them I was sick and couldn’t go. And the next thing I know, they’ve sent these two dicks to my house with a thermometer, and once they figured out I was faking they dragged me here!” she huffs angrily, handing Himiko her concealer and shoving her bottle of eyedrops back into her pant’s pocket, “Like, I don’t want to be here, nobody _else_ wants me to be here. It’s a mutual understanding! So leave me the hell alone, you creeps!”

 _Nobody else wants me to be here._ The phrase implied Sakine wasn’t liked. It was a little hard to believe, but then again this _was_ Danganronpa. The chances of her being a blackened was pretty high. But the phrase “nobody else” means she must have done something so horrible that _every_ season knew about. There were a few incidents from Himiko’s own season that everybody else could agree were horrible. Like the false conviction in the first trial. Or Korekiyo’s incest plotline created for shock value. Or the fact that the season had ended in perhaps the most boring, uneventful manner possible.

“That sucks…” Himiko mumbles, wincing through her teeth. She didn’t really know what else to say, “I can’t believe they’re _that_ fussed about everybody being here… They must be really fun at parties…”

Sakine chortles, beginning to adjust her mask over her nose, “You. I like you. I’ll keep an eye out for ya, Koko.”

_She’ll keep an eye out for me? Am I in danger? And since when did I have a nickname?_

“O-Oh? Thank you?” after the initial confusion settles, Himiko regains composure and finishes with a very serious, “Thank you.”

“All good,” Sakine shrugs, passing by the redhead and unlocking the bathroom door. Just before she is about to leave, she emits a heavy sigh before telling Himiko, “It’s just one week, yeah?”

The girl leaves. The advice seemed to be aimed more at herself than it did the redhead.

Himiko stares at the door where Sakine had just been, willing herself to leave and rejoin the tour group. Or, maybe, she should go back upstairs and take a nap. Both her and her girlfriend had been given keys, so staying up in their hotel room would be the most reasonable location for Tenko to find her.

She’ll take a nice nap and wake up with more energy. More energy to face Danganronpa, and a more stable mentality to walk through unknown territory. Sakine was right. This convention is only for one week. 

Himiko takes a lot longer staring at the door than she probably should have. Sakine just seemed so familiar. 


	4. come along now, run away from the humdrum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> let the convention begin!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally. PLOT!!

Whoever thought placing Himiko in the very back row of the Black Rose Ballroom was a good idea deserves to be fired.

The opening ceremonies were supposed to begin twenty minutes ago. All of the killing game participants had been shoved into the same ballroom, placed into chairs and told that the presentation would begin momentarily. Himiko was one of the shortest people in Danganronpa, and even if she wasn’t slouching miserably like she was currently there was no way she’d be able to see clearly. Ryoma sat next to her, haven given up entirely on even attempting to look over the mass of muscles positioned in front of him. 

It was the next day. Monday, the official start of the convention. Or, at least, _before_ the start of the convention, considering how the opening ceremonies have yet to happen.

Himiko had called it quits on the tour yesterday and decided to sleep until morning. She passed out on the chair in the corner of her hotel room, too tired to bother removing the blankets or unpack her pajamas. Despite this, she wakes up tucked safely into the bed anyways. Tenko had moved her once she returned to their room. Needless to say, Himiko felt a little better in the morning.

She got changed into a simple lavender skirt with a periwinkle sweater, signed in at reception and grabbed a nametag, joined most of her class for breakfast in the dining hall, and then arrived here.

Of course the ballroom was pretty stuffy, and incredibly noisy, but Himiko was coping with the noise and best as she could. Ryoma had pulled up a word puzzle game on his phone, and now the two of them were unscrambling letters and waiting for the main event to begin. Tenko, who was sitting backwards in the chair next to her, was chatting rather vigorously to Angie, who was behind them. 

The majority of the class had separated, bored from waiting for the ceremony to begin and too restless to stay seated. Many of them greet other killing game participants that they had become acquaintances with. Kaede and her translator, Shuichi, have been chatting with the Ultimate Moral Compass and his companion, the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader, down in the fourth row. Gonta had made friends with another entomologist from some random season, as well as a rather dramatic Ultimate Breeder from Season 2. Kokichi was undoubtedly badgering Hiyoko, but her redheaded companion seemed to be preventing her from lowkey strangling him. 

Korekiyo was sitting in his assigned seat at the end of the row. At first he had been clearly uncomfortable, but once Rantaro got there he sorta eased up. They weren’t talking to each other, but their silence wasn’t tense.

Miu found herself way in the front row, where the original Danganronpa cast was sat, and has been chatting with the Ultimate Programmer for quite some time now. At first, Kaede had joined them in their conversation, mostly as a filter for Miu, but eventually the strawberry blonde got so carried away with chatting about K1-B0’s development that Kaede slipped away from the discussion unnoticed. They’ve been like that all morning, so much so that the strawberry blonde was losing what was left of her voice. Miu was so excited to finally converse with somebody who understood what she was talking about, and the programmer-- Chihiro, if Himiko remembers correctly-- was happy to listen and offer tips about developing her AI further. Because of her blossoming friendship with a member of the Season One class, Miu was basically allowed to sit in the front row. Lucky her. Himiko is suffering back here.

Sakine had glided into the middle row, sitting nonchalantly off to the side and not necessarily interacting with anybody. Probably high again. Himiko was tempted to walk up to her, just to prove a point to herself and the others that she _did_ have the energy to make new friends and she _did_ have the energy to stand up and start conversations. But no matter how much she _wanted_ to do it, Himiko found herself remaining in her chair, playing word games with Ryoma, huddled next to her girlfriend. It was safe here, comfortable and safe. Stepping out of her box only meant noise, roisterous clammering from the horde of people around her and unwanted flash conversations.

“ _‘Wrought’_ ,” Ryoma suggests, pointing his finger at the phone and mapping out the word.

“...Is _‘rout’_ a word?” Himiko asks, “I’ve never been good at anagrams…”

The smaller boy shrugs and types it in anyways.

“This opening ceremony sure is taking quite a while,” Angie complains, broadening her conversation with Tenko towards Himiko and Ryoma. Her signature grin has faded, her mouth a thin line. Himiko found her frown rather unnerving the first few days she was out of the simulator, considering she had done absolutely nothing but smile during the killing game, “What do you think they’re doing?”

“Do you think they locked themselves out of the ballroom again?” Ryoma mumbles sarcastically under his breath, earning a round of laughter from the three girls.

Himiko does a quick double-check of everything in the ballroom. The stage was officially set up and held a central podium, presumably for whoever was speaking, as well as a few chairs positioned in a line for the Future Foundation and Team Danganronpa officials to sit and be professional. Cameras had been set up in the corners of the ballroom, the bulky ones that Hiyoko had volunteered to put up a little earlier. There was no way they would be able to get these ones down, unless somebody had an incredibly tall ladder.

The doors had closed a while ago, when the ceremony was _supposed_ to begin. Makoto and his team stood a little awkwardly onstage, chatting quietly amongst each other and waiting for things to happen.

Ryoma yawns, “Jeez. This is taking a while.”

“I say we all ditch!” Angie proposes with an airy giggle, “If we all run at the same time, they can not catch us all.”

“I agree with that!! Mimi, if I toss you over my shoulder and sprint, there’s no way they’ll catch up to me!!” Tenko says.

“Nnngg…..They’ll probably find us, though…” Himiko opposes, pointing up at the corners of the ballroom, “They’ve got cameras.”

“Oh, Kyoko told me those are only for the live shows!!” her girlfriend spins herself around so she’s sitting in the chair properly, “They have an online audience who will be watching performances.”

Again, Himiko will _not_ be performing magic tricks. If she spots anybody approaching her with a magic hat and a deck of cards she can and will scream.

“Still, Tenko. Maybe it’s best not to piss anyone off,” Ryoma suggests.

Tenko huffs righteously, “Well!! I actually need to pee!! So I will be right back, thank you!!”

The brunette stands up, pecks Himiko fiercely on the lips, brushes off her jeans and marches straight out of the double doors. The entrance is sealed behind her.

Members of Himiko’s class begin making their way back into their assigned seats. Kaede and Shuichi wave polite goodbyes to the Season One killing game participants and return happily to the back row. Gonta sits in his own chair, posture stiff and upright in an attempt to give the people next to him more space. Considering how Miu, who was ever so cruelly placed next to him, had found a new seat up in the front row, Gonta had a little more legroom. 

Ryoma notices a man stepping onto the stage and quickly hides his phone, “Angie, I think they’re finally starting.”

“Oh!” Angie exclaims, shuffling hurriedly back to her seat.

The Team Danganronpa official who walks onstage is geeky, his posture hunched and appearance overall frail. He takes the podium nervously, adjusting his tie and patting the notecards in his hands straight. Makoto and his friends take a seat in the row of chairs behind him, smile bright as always. 

“Welcome, everyone, to the second ever Danganronpa Convention!” the official starts, holding for a round of applause. The crowd roars in undeserved delight, while Himiko’s group rather awkwardly claps in the back, “Apologies for the late start, we had some issues backstage. All has been handled, so let’s get this show on the road!”

Another round of applause. Considering how this was the _second_ official Danganronpa Convention, maybe the crowd has become accustomed to applauding even when they absolutely hated being there. It explained a lot, actually. Maybe the killing game participants were very nervous the first time, as nervous as Himiko was, but the second time around they had grown used to it. Would that happen to Himiko’s class? Would they eventually become so used to attending these conventions and kissing Team Danganronpa’s feet that their distrust turns into excitement? Into gratitude towards the company that threw them into a killing game? 

No, Himiko reckons. She’ll probably be more like Sakine, begrudgingly in attendance and overall miserable to be here. Except, maybe she’ll try a little harder so she won’t have to come. Maybe she’ll fake her death and move to Spain. Learn Spanish and get a new job, away from Danganronpa.

“We are still missing a few people, so if anybody knows where Tsumugi Shirogane from Season 53, Kimura Miho from Season 12, and Mukuro Ikusaba from Season 1 are, please let them know they need to sign in at reception! Thank you,” his words sounded polite, but there was a bitterness behind his tone that even Himiko could pick up, “Alright, seeing as we’re all situated, I’ll hand over the mic to the Ultimate Hope himself, Mister Makoto Naegi!”

The applauds grow even louder. This time, even Himiko stands a little straighter, her clapping much more genuine and sincere. Makoto seemed to be an incredibly well-liked guy, which honestly made a ton of sense. He was written to be optimistic, kind and genuine. While Himiko couldn’t be sure how much of the _genuine_ part of his personality remained after the simulator, he was still very much kind.

“Hi, guys!” he waves to the audience, as if they were all old friends. Even Himiko had the urge to wave hello back to him, “Glad to see everybody here, again! Before we begin, let’s welcome our most recent additions with a warm round of applause. Welcome, classes of Season 52 and Season 53!”

A polite round of applause. It seemed more aimed at Season 52. Himiko’s season was practically universally hated at this point, even within the Danganronpa community. The redhead finds herself slouching as the room of killing game participants turn around to face them. 

After the audience calms down, Makoto begins again, “Let’s make sure they feel welcome, yeah? We all know how scary our first Danganronpa Convention was,” a round of laughter, “So if you see somebody new, why not introduce yourself? Make sure they’re feeling okay?”

There are quite a few people in Himiko’s class who would be opposed to random strangers walking up and talking to them. Tenko was still trying her hardest to get rid of all of her drilled-in prejudice against men, but still held unease and discomfort around boys she didn't know. If snuck up on or approached way too suddenly, Shuichi turns cold and rather untrusting. Miu has developed a habit of throat-punching people that sneak up on her. Rantaro tried once, thinking it would be a funny little joke. What a poor, poor fool.

The sentiment was sweet, Himiko supposes. But it was more suited for a new class of students than a new class of killing game participants.

“Now, I’d like to lead a moment of silence for those we have lost,” the sudden mood change gave Himiko whiplash. That transition was not handled well, “If you could join me in silence for a minute as we remember those who have passed.”

Awkwardly, and not knowing anybody who they were referring to, the class of Season 53 oblige, sealing their lips. A few members of the class noticeably tense, their expressions darkening. It seems that the only death they could mourn was their own. Himiko takes a moment to check behind her, at the double doors. Tenko has yet to return. She’ll have to catch her up later.

It didn’t feel like a minute, but Makoto was signaled to continue, anyway, “Our first events are starting up today, and will be taking place in the Tulip Ballroom! Which might be delayed, for we still are working on unlocking it!” there’s laughter from the audience. It appears everybody was in on the ‘locked ballrooms’ joke, “Very sorry. I really don’t… Anyways, get excited for that! Breakfast will be served every morning at 7 until 10, lunch will be served at 12 until 3, and dinner will be served at 6 until 10! All of this information will be sent out in our daily emails, as well as what events will occur and who signed up for each! Please be sure you have signed up for an event by tomorrow, you _are_ required to participate in at least two, but do more if you’d like! They’re all really fun, I promise. More fun than the interviews you’re required to do, anyways.”

Again, laughter. Everybody can agree that interviews are terrible. 

The Team Danganronpa official who started the ceremony has been talking with a few of the guards off to the side. Himiko finds herself distracted by them, Makoto’s instructions and speech fading into the background. The official seemed nervous, which was very clearly indicated by how anxiously he yanks at his tie, or how furrowed his bushy eyebrows were whenever he began talking. Himiko just assumed he had stagefright, or something. She couldn’t blame him. There were a lot of people here.

She’s not the only person who notices the Danganronpa official being escorted out of the ballroom. It’s rather hard not to notice him, as the only distraction was Makoto, who has not stopped his ongoing speech. He glances backwards, towards the audience of people, and then hastily exits the area. The guards do a double check of the ballroom before closing the two double doors, and-- Did--

_...Did they just lock the exit?_

“With everything that’s been going on… Especially with the AHL threats… It makes sense that people are a little tense,” Makoto continues, unbothered, “But it’s up to us to let them know that their favorite series is doing okay! Everything is okay, and it’s up to us to make sure that hope spreads to the outside world!”

It’s remarkable how much “hope” was still alive, even after Danganronpa had ended. It was also quite the huge indicator of how _little_ Himiko’s season had affected the past killing game participants, how their stance on rejecting both despair and hope had been lost on them all in favor of keeping hope alive and looking towards the future. Himiko sincerely doubts that any of them would listen to a group of seventeen year olds attempt to convince them that the only way to move on from Danganronpa, the only way to completely separate themselves from fiction, was to reject both ends of the spectrum. 

It’s also remarkable how nobody seems to be as fussed about the doors locking as Himiko’s class was. Many of them have been staring at the double doors for a while now, or at least continue to glance warily at the exit. Considering how many of the short people had nowhere else to look, since their vision was so rudely blocked by the tall people in front of them, they had no choice but to look behind them at the double doors and grow increasingly anxious. Shuichi is whispering with Kokichi. Scheming.

At first, Himiko was worried about the participants who would be unable to get back into the ballroom. She eventually realized that the dread setting into her stomach was less about who could get in and more about who couldn’t get _out._

Tenko has not returned.

“I’m sure we’re all very excited about the next week, so let’s make the most of it!” Makoto cheers, his grin reaching his ears, “I’m sure that--”

His microphone cuts out.

He keeps talking at first, but quickly realizes it isn’t working. Makoto taps on the microphone, throwing a few more soundless words into the device before gesturing an apology towards the audience. Murmurs ripple through the crowd as the killing game participants whisper amongst each other, confused and slightly amused by the situation. Byakuya attempts to get it working again, adjusting the microphone a few times, and then steps aside as Chihiro skips onto the stage and tries to get it working as well. Neither are successful. 

“So much for organization...” Ryoma grits under his breath, taking another long look at the locked exit behind him. 

The crowd notices how the microphone has stopped working and immediately grows louder, taking the lack of instruction as permission to keep talking. Makoto converses with his acquaintances, his smile slightly more strained, his mouthed words unreadable from where Himiko sat. The chances of him mouthing _‘What’s going on?’_ was just as high as him asking what the time was.

Tenko isn’t back yet. Where is she? Where _is_ she? 

“Sorry, technical difficulties!” Makoto yells out to the audience through cupped hands, chuckling awkwardly, “We’ll, uh--”

Himiko’s phone dings with a notification. Then Ryoma’s. Then Angie’s, then the entire class’s, then row after row after class after class. A notification ripples through the audience like a sudden wave, causing even louder murmurs of shock as the participants pull out their phones to check who had contacted every occupant of the room. Even Byakuya and Kyoko were pulling out their phones, squinting in confusion. They, too, were in the dark.

An unknown number. No contact information was available, no phone number or identification of who this person was. They had sent a list. They had sent a long text, so long that it felt like forever had passed before Himiko managed to scroll to the top.

Himiko looks over at the people sitting next to her. One row ahead. Three rows ahead. As far as she can see, everybody had received the exact same text. The exact same block of words, tiny and hard on the eyes. Even Miu, way down in the front row, had received it. Himiko could tell by the flippant remark of, “What the f--” before she had been cut off by a pointed look from the Ultimate Moral Compass next to her. Every participant had been sent a set of rules. 

It started off simple enough. 11 PM curfew. Breakfast at 7 AM. Every Danganronpa Killing Game Participant is required to participate in all compulsory interviews and at least two events, at risk of further punishment. No destroying Danganronpa property, _especially_ the cameras, at risk of further punishment.

But then it got worse, and worse, and _worse._ Himiko scrolls further down, her eyes wide and her hand beginning to vibrate with the phone. The demands grew dangerous, threatening and sickeningly baleful. Guns, knives, and other weapons are permitted for use even without a license. Guards are not to be attacked, at risk of further punishment. The Cypress area is not to be left, at risk of further punishment. All attempts to sabotage events or interviews are at risk of further punishment. All attempts of alerting the outside through the use of texting, social media, or other forms of cyber messaging, _are at risk of further punishment._

“What is this!?” a participant demands, standing up from his chair and shoving his phone in the direction of Makoto. 

The poor Ultimate Hope stared back, obviously not holding an answer, mouth hanging open as he tried to explain the unexplainable. The crowd began to stand up with the first participant, panic-ridden and suddenly nervous. Himiko’s own classmates were looking back and forth between the door, debating whether they had enough information to just book it and leave. Byakuya tries the microphone again but it still didn’t work, leaving his voice muted and powerless against the increasingly agitated crowd. Another one of the Future Foundation members, the Ultimate Swimmer, if Himiko was remembering correctly, was gesturing for everybody to stay calm. To remain in their seats.

“Everybody, please, stay calm!” she was asking. Her passive yet firm demands are successful in getting a few of the audience members to sit back down, “We will figure everything out, let’s just--”

From above, a lively chime. Himiko is almost too frozen in place to look upwards. Her neck feels as if it had rusted in place, her eyes unblinking as she reads through the instructions again, and again, and _again._

Tenko has not come back. Tenko has _not_ come back.

If this was a prank, it was a cruel, _cruel_ one. It was cruel and inhumane. Cruel and inhumane for somebody to place the Monokuma on the rafters, remorseless and barbarous for someone to turn the Monokuma _on._ To have it stare down at its past victims, glaring at the crowd intently with its one glowing red eye. Hollow. The vacancy behind its eyes was robotic and cold, even for a stuffed animal. A chill runs through the entire crowd, a horrified gasp striking almost every participant.

“Good morning.”

It’s not Monokuma. Or, at least, it wasn’t his _voice._ It came from the bear, that fact was true, but the voice that was emitted from it was low and heavily modified. Himiko wouldn’t be able to identify it if she tried. And it was loud, booming around the room and shrill in the redhead’s ears. The voice vibrates through her body and leaves her helplessly sitting in her chair. 

“God?” Kokichi asks facetiously. Angie glowers at him, obviously taking the joke as a jab to her prewritten divinity, but the intentions are dulled by her fear.

“Remain calm. Those of you who are innocent will not be harmed,” the voice is still coming from Monokuma, speaking loudly over the mortified blabbering of the people below it, “Stay reasonable and collected, and this will go over quickly.”

Makoto leaps off of the stage, gesturing for those in the audience thinking about leaving to remain where they were as he rushes down the aisle to get a clearer look. He’s terrified, as well. He stares at the bear, his old friend and enemy, his corny smile completely replaced with a nostalgic fear. It’s when the ball drops: _Makoto is afraid._ The Future Foundation doesn’t know what is going on. Participants are yelling at him, asking him what is going on, asking him if this is some sort of sick _joke,_ but Makoto only stares as Monokuma continues.

“You are currently in Day 1 of the convention,” it’s another voice, this one sounding less human and more like somebody had selected text-to-speech, “Your chance of survival increases by following my orders. Your first task is simple: Murder the thirty traitors amongst you by any means necessary.”

The audience begins panicking louder, more wildly. Everybody around Himiko has stood up from their chair, screaming and yelling at each other for explanations that nobody was receiving. Her own class was probably making the most ruckus, with many of them screeching incoherently at each other in hopes somebody knew what was happening. In hopes somebody knew what to do. Miu notices her friends in the back panicking and moves to join them, but a few other participants must have thought she was running towards the exit and followed suit. One of them reaches the double doors first, tugging against them furiously. The audience hushes, waiting for her verdict.

“It’s locked!” She announces.

More participants have begun to move towards the exits, not entirely rabid and wild but still incredibly vigilant and frantic. Every door has been locked, presumably electronically. No matter how hard they tugged against the handles, no matter how strong or how muscular they were, nobody was able to open them. Himiko remained in place, frozen politely in her chair, staring at the bear with unpalatable fear. If this was a joke, it wasn’t funny. It _wasn’t_ funny.

“I’d say there are about a thousand of you currently in the building,” the first voice says, low and hideous-sounding, “By the end of the day, thirty of you will be dead. There will be severe consequences if you have not reached this criteria at the end of the time limit.”

“Don’t make us drag innocent people into this,” the other voice continues, “You know who you are.”

Himiko didn’t know who or what the voices were referring to. She didn’t know what they wanted, and that only twisted the knife in her gut further. Maybe she was overreacting to a silly prank, maybe not. But the feeling of pure panic, of unimaginable horror and terror, comes stabbing right back through her spine and up her throat. She is fastened to her chair, unable to move any of her limbs even when everybody around her has dissolved into hysteria. 

It is mainly her class that was overreacting, and considering the killing game which they had only _just_ participated in, it felt a little justified. Those who had been deceased knew death all too well, were frightened of greeting it again, were _horrified_ at being trapped in yet another situation that placed them in harm's way. The only reasonable person there was perhaps Kaito, who was running around trying to tell people it was only some stupid prank, that somebody was pulling an awful joke, that they were stronger than some _stupid bear._

The difference was permanence. Himiko did not like thinking about the simulation and the possibility of the reality she was currently living in _also_ not being real, but from where she stood now death was almost certainly permanent. Half of her class had been given a second chance (from a death that should never have happened in the first place), so the possibility of a third chance was considerably slim. It was why Angie was huddled in on herself, sitting on her chair with her head to the floor and her hands covering the back of her neck as if something would attack her. It was why Rantaro was standing on his chair, demanding answers and an explanation despite knowing full well nobody knows who is behind this. It was why Shuichi was attempting to call the police, even when the rules told him _not_ to contact anybody from the outside, but unluckily (luckily? Maybe he would be in danger if they had answered) he is unable to reach them.

The microphone finally turns back on, after a few more taps from Byakuya. Feedback screeches through the ballroom, causing many of the occupants to cup their hands over their ears. After a sharp call of his name from Byakuya and a firm gesture to return to the stage, Makoto hurriedly shuffles back onstage and takes the microphone.

“Everybody-- Everybody, stay calm!” he instructs, which nobody follows at first, “We will get the doors unlocked, but we need you all to return to your seats.”

The crowd yells back in defiance. Many do not sit back down, instead standing or hovering nervously next to the doors. A few follow their directions.

“We’ve had issues with the electronic locks all day, this doesn’t mean anything--” Makoto tries to reason, “And-- And the bear is just somebody yanking our chain. It’s off now, see?”

Himiko begrudgingly looks up. The bear has slumped over, its red eye dull and unlit. It doesn’t help much with her paralyzing fear. It still loomed over the crowd like a hawk to its prey. People were climbing up the rafters to remove it, but it didn’t erase the threat. It didn’t erase the block of text everybody had received, or the doors suddenly locking on everybody. 

The thought of texting Tenko slammed mercilessly against Himiko’s skull, yet she just couldn’t seem to move. She was trying to tell herself that Makoto was right, that somebody was cruel enough to play this stupid prank on them, but every part of her refused to cooperate with her brain. The noise definitely did not help, either. It was overwhelming and crowded, the ballroom now infinitely more congested than it had been previously.

A participant stands up on his chair, pointing threateningly at Makoto, “Since when the hell do we have to listen to you!? Let us out of this goddamn room!!”

The Ultimate Hope winces, eyes flickering around at the doors, “I don’t-- We are working on that, but we need everybody to sit down so that we’re able to--”

“This was always gonna happen!” the participant who was standing on his chair has now turned around, facing the crowd. The audience begins to simmer down, rallying around him, “Danganronpa thinks we’re their little _puppets_ to toy with whenever they fucking--”

“This was _not_ Danganronpa,” Makoto assures, eyebrows furrowed, “Everything will be alright, but we can’t panic like this. We will find whoever was behind this, and rest assured they will be removed from the premises. But for now, we need to continue with the convention as normal--” the crowd grovels and whines, obviously not ready to let this incident go by so silently, “--as to not worry any of the online audience. We are okay. We need to have hope that--”

“ _God,_ are you still on this fucking hope shit!? Give it up, already!! This is the real world, not inside that goddamn simulator!” the participants gesture at the 53rd class, way in the back, “There are _kids_ here! _Kids!!_ And you’re telling us just to do nothing about this!? Obviously _somebody_ is trying to fuck with us, and since your precious _hope_ won’t do anything, _we_ will!”

“We?” Makoto parrots,“It’s-- You can’t take this threat too seriously. Nothing is wrong, it is clearly somebody trying to play a trick. We all need to remain calm and have hope that--”

“Have hope!? Bullshit!” the participant has gained quite the following, many of the people around him agreeing, “To everybody who agrees that this is the _real world:_ we get the kids out of here first and then figure out what’s going on. Refuse to cooperate until we figure out just _who the hell did this_ \--”

“Please, calm down!” Makoto begs, tugging nervously at his right ear, “Everything will be fine, we can’t overreact to--”

“Of course I’m fucking overreacting!! You put us in a fucking killing game and except us _not_ to freak out!?” the participant points his finger at the Ultimate Hope accusingly. The man at the opposite end of the finger was staring back at him, clearly distressed, “I wouldn’t be surprised if y--”

The next moment happens quickly. 

In a fight or flight situation, Himiko was usually one to completely freeze. There were very few moments where she fully processes the situation and makes a decision quickly enough for her body to choose either flight or fight, so most of the time she just ends up frozen, staring at the situation around her. Even when everybody was screaming around her, desperation flooding the ballroom as every participant tramples and scampers helplessly out towards the exit, Himiko finds herself sitting. Sitting patiently. Even amidst the chaos.

Even after the gunshot goes off, Himiko finds herself frozen.

At first, everybody had been. They stared in complete horror, in complete silence, as if somebody had manually turned the volume dial down to zero before shooting it back up to the ceiling. Somebody shrieks, a lady down in the third row, and suddenly everybody has unfrozen and begun running towards the exit. Desperately trying to exit the ballroom. Desperately trying to seek cover, to find safety. The noise was clamorous, unbearable in every sense. Himiko’s class had shot up and ran, the first ones to the door, while the redhead stayed glued to her chair.

With a silent click, the electronic locks shut down. The participants pour out of the room, shoving at each other to reach safety. Somebody grabs Himiko’s wrist and yanks her to her feet, sprinting through the crowd, their height proving to be a great advantage as they navigate swiftly out of the ballroom and through the hotel lobby.

Himiko can see black dancing in the corner of her vision. Nothing is processing as fast as it should. The person who grabbed her wrist has separated from the crowd, turning into another hall of the hotel that didn’t lead the exit. It’s more silent. The screams are muffled. The carpet underneath them was tacky. Eventually they reach a stop. The person lets go of her wrist and climbs onto a counter. The vents. He’s leading them into the vents. Her savior has realized that attempting to exit would prove fruitless, and instead has taken to hiding.

The only thing Himiko was able to process of the person who grabbed her wrist was his long hair before she finally kicked into action, her flight reflexes _finally_ taking over and causing her to scream in delayed terror, her hands shaking as she backed further and further into the vents. Where is she? Oh god, what is happening? It's as if her brain suddenly shot awake after blacking out, as if all of her senses have activated after being asleep for so long. What just happened, who was hurt, _why_ is this happening? Why is this happening?? Where is Tenko? _Where is Tenko!?_

Korekiyo closes the grate behind them. People are screaming.


	5. i don't know anything! i don't even know what i don't know!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> reactions from two different people in two different hiding spots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me? introducing our second protagonist in the middle of a chapter?
> 
> yeah

**Unnamed Group Chat**

**May 20th, 10:23 AM**

**Miu Iruma:** _[Audio Recording: Gusts of wind stab into the phone’s receiver. Miu is running, crowds of people screaming around her. “Where the fuck are you guys!?” she screeches frantically into the phone, “Where the fuck are you!?!?”]_

**May 20th, 10:25 AM**

**Shuichi Saihara:** who are w emissing 

**Shuichi Saihara:** we missing 

**Kirumi Tojo:** I am currently with Angie, Ryoma, and Rantaro in the woman’s bathroom on the first floor. 

**Kirumi Tojo:** If you are not listed above and have access to your phone, please tell us where you are and if you are safe.

 **Maki Harukawa:** im calling kaito idk where he is but im safe im in a hotel room 

**Korekiyo Shinguji:** I can account for both myself and Himiko. We are safe, if not slightly frazzled.

 **Himiko Yumeno:** odes anyone know where tenko s

 **Himiko Yumeno:** shes not awnsering her phone

**May 20th, 10:29 AM**

**Gonta Gokuhara:** Gonta is Okay and Kaito iWith Me

 **Gonta Gokuhara:** Sorry BadD at texting

 **Kaede Akamatsu:** Shuichi Miu and I are with a few other people in the kitchen but we’re thinking about moving bc the doors don’t lock

 **Kirumi Tojo:** Try not to move outside unless it is absolutely necessary. Is anybody else considering moving? If so, we will let you inside where we are.

 **Korekiyo Shinguji:** I believe it would be wise for Himiko and I to remain here.

 **Rantaro Amami:** kory where are you

 **Korekiyo Shinguji:** Oh, you know.

 **Miu Iruma:** n ohe doesn’t thats why he fuckign asked??????

 **Shuichi Saihara:** kokichi is ok he just answered his phone

 **Shuichi Saihara:** he’s in the boys restroom on the second floor w some other peopel

 **Kokichi Ouma:** i was filming a tiktok 😡

 **Shuichi Saihara:** don’t joke not the time

 **Miu Iruma:** THIS ISNT THE TIME YOU BTICH

 **Maki Harukawa:** i'm actually about to fucking strangle you could you be serious for one moment PLEASE

 **Himiko Yumeno:** guys where is tenko

 **Kirumi Tojo:** Kokichi, now is not the time to make jokes. This is an incredibly serious matter.

 **Angie Yonaga:** it’s so loud everythign is so LOUD :))

 **Angie Yonaga:** rantaro is unconscious again what do i DO :))))))))))

 **Ryoma Hoshi:** just got notified the front door is locked

 **Ryoma Hoshi:** people are trying to find another way out

 **Himiko Yumeno:** hello does somebody where t

 **Himiko Yumeno:** where tenko is

 **Ryoma Hoshi:** doesn’t look too good

 **Ryoma Hoshi:** im talking about the doors

 **Kaito Momota:** Just got my phoen back sorry it was shut off yeah me and Gonta are okay

 **Gonta Gokuhara:** _[Audio Recording: Gonta and Kaito reside in an area with sharp acoustics, surrounded by a small group of frightened, restless people. A woman in the background of the recording is mumbling, “Not again, not again” repeatedly under her breath. “We in-- We are in somebody’s hotel room,” Gonta tells the phone, his grammar choppy and words slow, “On-- In fourth floor. A lot of people say their hotel keys no work when they tried to open their hotel rooms.”]_

 **Kirumi Tojo:** Thank you both.

 **Miu Iruma:** what i sd

 **Miu Iruma:** what is going ON im ac

 **Miu Iruma:** actually shitting myself what the fuck i shappening

 **Shuichi Saihara:** i’m trying to call the police but they've cut off connections to the outside 

**Shuichi Saihara:** it;s literally impossible

 **Himiko Yumeno:** GUYS

 **Miu Iruma:** i don’t understand why thsi is happenign to us

 **Miu Iruma:** FUCKIGN AGAIN

 **Kaede Akamatsu:** Everybody, we’re going to be okay I promise. Take a few deep breaths, everything will be okay

 **Kaito Momota:** Aoi from FF is here she’s saying dont panic too much it was likely somebody playing a gunshot sound off of their phone or somehting

 **Shuichi Saihara:** i’m gonna try calling the cops again

 **Kirumi Tojo:** For those not with us: please remain calm and silent. Do not move unless absolutely necessary. 

**Kirumi Tojo:** Everything will be okay.

 **Himiko Yumeno:** CAN SOMEBODSY PLEASE AWNSER ME WEHER E IS TENKO

-=+=-

**_Shit._ **

No response. No text message in reply, no answered phone calls, no nothing. If Tenko was trying to disengage from her cellphone, this was perhaps the worst possible time she could have chosen to do so.

The phone is shaking in Himiko’s hands, making it almost impossible for her to type coherently. Her vision is blurred by hot, terrified tears, clouding the words on her screen and further hindering her attempts at contacting her girlfriend. Her panic was less about her own safety, and more about the safety of Tenko, who had left the ballroom before the chaos started and has been missing in action since. The redhead is safe here in the vents, but there’s no telling how safe Tenko is. Himiko can’t stop shaking. She needs to stop _shaking._

The vents are too congested, too small for Himiko to possibly breathe in. Her knees have been pulled up to her chin, her entire body curled in on itself with her back to the vent’s walls, her phone gripped tightly in her trembling hands. Korekiyo sits stiffly with his legs crossed a few feet away from the redhead, his leather-bound notebook placed politely on his right leg while his phone sits upright on his left. He was scribbling, his distraught note-taking becoming white noise in the background as Himiko continued to text the group chat for answers. Neither the redhead nor the dark-haired teenager have made a move to speak to the other. They’ve maintained considerable distance, both of them preoccupied with their own form of panic and stress, and have yet to communicate with each other.

At one point, Himiko realizes that she can’t continue to text with how much her hands were vibrating. She sets the phone down next to her, burying her face in her knees and hiccuping.

Her brain picks up every noise emitted, her sense of hearing heightened exponentially. Every thin exhale she releases, every line dragged from Korekiyo’s pencil, every muffled yell from people outside or in another room connected with the same vents they were currently hidden in.

“...I have yet to hear another gunshot,” Korekiyo offers, in some weak attempt to console her, “It’s unlikely anybody else was harmed.”

Himiko doesn’t reply. She doesn’t even spare him a glance in his direction. Korekiyo notices the tension and quickly returns to his notebook.

The redhead allows a few long moments to pass before she checks her phone again. Still nothing. Himiko was very strongly considering ignoring Kirumi’s texted demands to stay hidden and instead sprint to the girl’s bathroom. The horrifying part of it all was that Kirumi’s group was in that very bathroom, the same bathroom that Tenko was _supposed_ to be in. Maybe there was another bathroom on that floor. Or maybe Tenko just… went back to their hotel room?? Himiko was clutching onto any outcome that didn’t involve the brunette being hurt.

“I’m heading out,” she says finally, throat hoarse as she begins climbing towards the exit. 

Before she is able to reach the grate, Korekiyo shoots his legs out, blocking Himiko from exiting the vents. She instantly sours, her wobbling lips curling into a frown.

“Move, _please,_ ” she demands, the word ‘please’ spat hatefully. He doesn’t recede his legs. Even as she begins shoving against them, trying to bypass this makeshift gate he has created, Korekiyo remains where he is, “Korekiyo!”

“Just because we did not hear another gunshot does _not_ mean the possibility of being shot is off of the table,” he replies, adjusting his footing to further strengthen his stance, “Tenko is smart enough to understand that hiding is currently the safest option.”

“I don’t _care_. I-I just want to make sure she’s okay, now let me out!” 

She tries again, this time slamming her entire body against the wall of legs, but is rather unsuccessful in getting him to move. With a disgruntled huff, she glares daggers into his gold irises, wiping hot tears away from her cheeks.

“Fine! I’ll go around!” she growls snottily, turning herself around and beginning her crawl directly into the maze that was the ventilation system. 

“Again, perhaps that isn’t the smartest…” noticing how his words were not impacting Himiko’s angry crawl away from him, he quickly changes his approach. Abruptly and with no segway, he calls out, “Is Tenko a part of the AHL?”

The question stops Himiko dead in her tracks. At first she was too upset to give him an answer, was ready to turn around and snap at him for continuing to interfere with her saving her girlfriend, but eventually her terror-filled anger was clouded with confusion. Clearly while Himiko had been panicking and freaking out over the current crisis they were in, Korekiyo has already taken to hypothesizing what could possibly be happening. Himiko had only just managed to process the situation at hand about ten minutes ago. It was shocking that Korekiyo managed to not only process the situation in record time, coming to the decision that the front doors would be locked so therefore yanking Himiko into the vents would be best for their safety, but also began his own investigation.

“No, of course not,” she answers, voice wavering yet still filled with distaste, “She would have told me. What does this have to do with--”

“Well, then she should be alright. The voice directly stated that those who are innocent will not be targeted. If my theory is correct, and she isn’t a part of the AHL, she shouldn’t be in any danger,” he says, before tilting his head slightly to the left, “...Or _causing_ any danger, if my _other_ theory is correct,” noticing Himiko’s squinted eyes, he quickly follows with, “In summary, if she has no affiliation with the Anti-Hope League, Tenko should be safe.”

“How would you know?” Himiko interrogates.

“I do not know. It is merely a speculation. However, it is incredibly likely that the Anti-Hope League has at least _something_ to do with this, whether they are the traitors or the people behind that Monokuma stunt. But, I digress.”

The redhead sputters in disdain, ignoring that she didn’t know what ‘digress’ meant, “Th-That’s still not-- I still wanna--”

“You may do whatever you wish, but I very much believe that Tenko would prefer you to be _alive_ when she emerges from wherever she has been hiding.”

Himiko opens her mouth, but no rebuttal emerges. If Tenko was in this position, she would have slammed through Korekiyo’s legs by now just to make sure Himiko was safe and well. If Tenko was the one in the vents, and Himiko was the one missing in action, the brunette would have already found her by now. Tenko would have fought harder, would have been stronger. Himiko is weak and frightened, too defenseless and helpless to fight. Himiko is not strong. She’s useless. _Useless._

She falls back, realizing with great contempt that Korekiyo was, in one way or another, correct. It doesn’t unknot the deep fear within her stomach, does not help to ease her shakiness or her pathetic hiccuping. Her concealer, which she had put on to hide the bags under her eyes, was now staining the sleeve of her sweater with how many times she has been rubbing tears off of her cheeks.

Her phone has been buzzing like crazy, none of the notifications belonging to Tenko, almost all of them coming directly from the group chat as people checked in on each other to ensure nobody was completely falling apart. They were avoiding discussing Tenko like she was the plague. Kaede had assured her through direct messaging that she would continue to reach out to Tenko, and that if she did end up moving from the kitchen that she would keep an eye out for the brunette. It wasn’t enough. Himiko was so worried, so anxious she could hurl.

The pair return to silence, this time fueled with bitterness and guilt. Himiko’s tears were streaming silently down her face, but she was no longer hiccuping. They were angry, dyspeptic tears that splashed to the floor pathetically. 

Out of every person to be saved by, it just _had_ to be Korekiyo, huh. Korekiyo _had_ to be the one to all of the sudden develop superhero-like instincts and run out the door with Himiko. Why not… literally anybody else? Did the universe really hate her that much? Because surely it knew how tense it was going to be between them. The man next to her was a complete mystery, a total wild card. Himiko doesn’t know the real him well enough to make a decision, but his face mask and unchanged hair length gave her enough information already. 

Eventually she can’t help but release a convoluted sigh. This isn’t the person she should be angry at. Especially not right after he went out of his way to remove her from danger. How horrible _is_ she? He pulls her to safety and her response is to give him death glares?

Her relationship with Korekiyo was complicated. She knows that. But he _did_ basically just save her back there.

No matter how much she steadied herself to thank him, her mouth seemed to have other plans, “...You’re… _sure_ that Tenko is alright…?”

Korekiyo looks up from his notebook, having returned to his excessive notetaking once the pair returned to silence. The visible half of his face hardens, clearly holding no distinct answer for the frightened girl, his yellow eyes narrowed and his eyebrows furrowed. 

“Well… It’s only a--” before he finishes, he cuts himself off with a heavy exhale, “Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”

It’s not enough. Himiko reckons it won’t be enough until Tenko actually picks up her phone and _replies._ If after all of this is over, and Himiko discovers that Tenko hadn’t responded because she lost her phone or had it shut off for some mundane reason, the redhead will probably go ballistic. The amount of stress this was causing was definitely taking a few years off of her lifespan. 

Korekiyo’s empty promises are not enough. Even before the gunshot, Tenko had been gone much longer than she should have been. Korekiyo’s words ring hopelessly through Himiko’s ears, in some desperate attempt to convince herself things were fine. If she wasn’t a part of the AHL, she should be fine. 

Who _was_ a part of the AHL? The Anti-Hope League has never explicitly stated how many members they have. There were hundreds of people at this convention. It could be any of them. Screw it, it could be _all_ of them. 

This form of paranoia, this panic and horror she found herself holding currently, should not be this familiar to a sixteen year old. This sense of familiarity haunts her, this horrifying acquaintanceship with the overwhelming fear of death choked at her remorselessly. The fear of death that looms over her should not feel like greeting an old friend. 

Himiko can’t look at Korekiyo without flooding memories of the killing game returning to stab her in the gut. She can’t turn the other direction without her brain insisting that she could be doing more, that she should be doing _something._ People are screaming outside, and the more she listens to them running and yelling for safety, yelling for help that will not arrive, the more they begin to eerily resemble her own girlfriend’s desperate shrieks.

Himiko can’t stop shaking.

-=+=-

_WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!?_

It’s the only question that has been circulating Miu’s mind for a while now, as if every other logical part of her brain automatically flipped itself off at the sign of danger. Any filter provided by Kaede attempting to mute her vulgarity was basically thrown out the window. She has already been warned multiple times by the other people in the room that she needs to stop screaming out curse words every two seconds, at risk of being thrown out of their hiding spot. 

The kitchen was remarkably cold. Even with the oversized jacket Miu had huddled herself in, even as she curled in on herself between a few counters, a brisk chill still manages to creep up her skin. Kaede, trembling but certainly not from the cold, was sitting across from her, her scrunched face illuminated by her phone screen as she continued to send vaguely supportive messages to the group. Shuichi was sitting next to her, their shoulders touching as they hid between counters, having given up attempting to call the cops quite a bit ago and was now sitting solemnly. A handful of other participants have also holed themselves up in the kitchen, two of them sitting on the mountain of tables and other objects they had piled up against the door. With no lock on the entrance to the kitchen, and nothing but a belt to keep the door fastened shut, the occupants of the room had worked quickly to barricade the door with anything they could find.

Shuichi and Kaede were the only other people in the kitchen from Season 53. The others were scattered across multiple seasons, some of the most notable being a more petite woman dressed in gothic yet hauntingly cottagecore fashion, a shorter blonde man with a cloudy right eye (What was his name again? Foyoko? Fuyako?) and a woman with piercing red eyes hovering protectively next to him, the Ultimate Traditional Dancer that Miu remembers from her tour, and Chihiro Fujisaki, who Miu had made friends with before-- Well, _this._

Miu checks her phone. Nothing from Tenko yet. And if the all uppercase texts from Himiko told her anything, her class was beginning to panic. She’s texted Tenko 32 times in a row now, and that was probably nothing compared to the amount of times Himiko would be trying to call her. Shuichi and Kaede have both tried to call the brunette more than a few times, and it should have yielded better results considering they were _actually_ friends with Tenko. No answer. They can only hope that Tenko’s phone had died earlier, and that’s why she wasn’t replying to anybody. They can only hope. 

The man with the injured right eye (Foyiko?) growls under his breath. He has been texting people as well, almost everybody has been.

“Doors are locked,” he voices out loud, but more specifically to the Ultimate Traditional Dancer and the red-eyed woman next to him. It seems they all know each other, at least, “They’ve got the electronic locks on all the doors. Hajime says nobody can exit.”

He’s met with total silence. Miu had given up screaming profanities a while ago. Kaede stares for a moment, wide-eyed, before returning to her own phone to tell the others. Shuichi sighs and slinks further down the wall, picking up his phone once more and beginning another conversation with someone Miu hadn’t bothered to recognize.

The traditional dancer’s face sours, her nose twitching unpleasantly.

“I-If this is some stupid _joke,_ I swear--! Those nasty, toilet-clogging little pigshits aren’t gonna hear the end of it--!” she complains bitterly, slamming her palms against the counter she was currently sitting on.

“Could you be any more childish?” the gothic girl replies, her words monotone despite the harshness behind them. Miu squints at her nametag. Her name is Celestia. What an obviously-not-Japanese name, “There are _teenagers_ who are currently being more mature than you are.” 

Miu’s brain blinks with a joke about her being “mature”, but considering the situation at hand it seemed inappropriate. That, and Kaede was already flashing her a disappointed look, despite nothing having come out of her mouth yet.

“Well, I--” the dancer looks over at Kaede and Shuichi, both of whom were huddled nervously on the same side of the room. She then closes her eyes, taking a second to collect herself with a solid exhale, “Sorry. I’m just nervous.”

“Damn, an apology? Haven’t heard one of those from you since Season 8,” the male blonde (is his name Fuhoyo?? Fukowo???) snickers. 

The dancer sarcastically narrows her eyes, “Well, I’m _trying_ , okay? Don’t punish me for trying to be nicer, pissbaby!”

_“Pissbaby--!?”_

“U-Um, guys? Could you maybe keep it down?” Chihiro requests timidly, voice never rising past a whisper as he nervously tugs the sleeves of his sweater, “There might be people out there.”

They silence immediately. Despite their disagreements, they can both reach the consensus that it was smarter to shut up than scream at each other. Especially considering the situation they were in, as well as the other people they were currently stuck with. They didn’t want to be responsible for this group of people being found and possibly harmed.

Miu turns off her phone as well, probably having texted every possible thing she could have by now. _Shit,_ she signs at her friends on the opposite side of the room repeatedly, _Shit. Bitch! Bitch. Fuck fuck shit._

 _Months of sign language classes all come down to this,_ Kaede signs back flippantly, her gestures much less rapid and frantic than the strawberry blonde. 

_Tell me how to sign A-S-S-H-O-L-E again. I forgot,_ Miu demands, her chattering teeth gritted.

Kaede sighs, finding it too inappropriate to roll her eyes in this situation, _It’ll be okay, I promise._

Miu didn’t believe her. Don’t get her wrong, Kaede was probably one of her best friends, but Jesus fuckin’ Christ was she optimistic about the worst things. It was probably just an act on the blonde’s behalf, probably just a strong facade so those around her don’t panic even further. It was working for Shuichi, at least, but that’s only because he hadn't died before. He didn’t have that constant reminder of pain and suffering lingering over his head. He didn’t have to constantly avoid objects and phrases that reminded him of his premature demise. He got to make friends with Kokichi and Gonta without the overwhelming guilt or fear eating at him. He got lucky. Miu couldn’t say it was working for her.

Even if he seemed calmer, Shuichi still seemed rather out of it, his eyes glazed over. He was definitely thinking. Horror had turned into pensive hollowness quite a bit ago. Probably after his multiple attempts to call the police returned fruitless. Kaede offers a supportive arm around the shoulder, which he weakly smiles at before continuing to ponder in total silence. Probably being all detective-like and doing detective things.

“Did somebody… die?” he asks, voice emotionless and cold.

The adults in the room glance at each other nervously. If anybody _knew_ the answer, nobody was explicitly sharing it. Miu supposes they all felt some sort of duty to protect the “kids” in the room from information that could possibly hurt them. Their silence only implied the worst.

Miu wasn’t fucking stupid. She knew that the bullet-- if there even _was_ a bullet-- would have a very low possibility of missing, especially considering the crowded area they had been in. She, personally, hadn’t seen anybody get shot, had only heard the gunshot go off before everybody screamed and darted towards the exit. Shuichi explained on their sprint towards safety, terrified and hyperventilating, that he had noticed the man who had been fighting with Makoto fall off of his chair. The crowd was too frenzied, the moment too fleeting and quick, that the former detective couldn’t definitively answer whether or not he was killed. Or even if it was him who was shot at. 

It seems the adults have all silently decided that Chihiro would be the one to answer, if their complex glances at him told Miu anything. Chihiro had been sitting on the tower of tables, head in his hands, eyes closed tightly to prevent the harsh illumination of the kitchen lighting from further increasing his headache. He had complained about being light-headed a few times, leading the gothic girl to grab him a glass of water. Head trauma, Miu supposes, presumably from being killed by bludgeoning. Rantaro was similar in the sense that he sporadically felt light-headed, and if Angie’s texts to the group chat told her anything he definitely succumbed to it and passed out. Poor guy. Miu would never say that out loud, but poor guy.

“W-Well, I haven’t heard anything from the class… and I don’t remember seeing any… blood…” Chihiro answers slowly, clearly attempting to sugar coat it as best as he could, “So I wouldn’t jump to conclusions too quickly.”

“How about Makoto and the people on stage? None of them were hurt?” Shuichi questions.

Chihiro shakes his head, “As far as I’m aware, none of them were hurt. They’re all trying to figure out what’s going on… they told me that once they’re positive everything is safe that they’ll make a few more announcements--”

“Th-This whole situation is _fucked_ and I’m leaving as soon as the coast is clear,” Miu audibly objects, eyes never leaving in front of her.

Shuichi nods from next to Kaede. All three of them, perhaps their entire class, even, have no intention of staying here any longer. The rule that forbade them from leaving the hotel “at risk of further punishment” was still a massive worry, but Miu was determined to ditch this hellhole if it meant breaking through a window and sprinting all the way to the nearest town. Even if this entire thing was some cruel joke. Eventually, after she had stopped screaming in fear, she realized she was more bitter, if anything. Agitated by the situation at hand. She wanted to do more, needed to protect herself. 

“How are we supposed to know the coast is clear? We have yet to identify who had the gun,” the taller lady, whose nametag declared her as the Ultimate Swordswoman, says.

“I’m sure everything is being figured out, Peko. Don’t worry!” Chihiro assures, sending glances over at the teenagers in the room as a signal for her to stop talking about the subject while around them, “We don’t even know if there was a gun. It-- It could have just been a sound? To scare us, maybe?”

Miu can’t help but feel slightly degraded at how child-like they are making her seem. Did all of them just suddenly forget that they all exited the same franchise? That they were all a part of a killing game? Why couldn’t she be a part of the adult conversations? Why wasn’t she allowed all of the information? Her class’s lives were at risk just as much as everybody else's, so why weren’t they being given the same treatment? She’d be able to figure everything out! They just need to give her a _chance._

A sudden gust of determination causes Kaede to push herself off of the floor, facial expression hardened with perseverance. Shuichi, noticing the familiar glint of hope in her eyes and realizing she is about to say something, quickly scrambles up to his feet as well. Miu sits on her ass until further notice.

 _We need to figure out who is behind all of this. Hiding and waiting isn’t going to do us any good,_ she signs firmly, with Shuichi hurriedly translating, _If all of us work together, there’s no way we’d fail!_

The blonde man (Fuyohi-- _Fuyohiko!!_ It was Fuyohiko) next to Peko scoffs, turning away, “Must’ve been a protagonist.”

The room dissolves into silent laughter. Kaede’s determined smile immediately drops into a frown. 

_And what about it?_ She signs, but the sentence goes untranslated by Shuichi as they flickered over to the next subject.

“No, I agree with Kaede. I think finding exactly where the gunshot came from is the best way forward,” Shuichi quickly begins. Miu can’t help but smirk as his detective skills shine through once more, but that smirk again drops as the sudden reminder of their prewritten talents comes rolling back, “Our bags were searched pretty thoroughly, and the guards had left before the gunshot went off. The chance of somebody having a gun in the ballroom seems pretty low.”

“All of my fuckin’ money is on the cameras being secret guns,” Miu hypothesizes bluntly, “Th-Those things were bulky as shit! Either the twink who made them had no clue what the fuck they were doing, or they’re guns.”

God, her throat feels like shit. She always does this, always wastes what little of her voice she has and then regrets it immediately the next day. In her defense, she didn't waste it on inappropriate jokes and obnoxious laughter this time. She had been shrieking for dear life. A bit more justifiable, considering the events at hand.

The adults of the room blink at Miu’s rather foul language, but Kaede and Shuichi only nod in agreement. They have basically separated themselves, despite never leaving the room or moving off to the corner, holding a serious conversation and making the accusations that the adults refused to make without them. If the adults aren’t going to be helpful, then fucking whatever! Miu doesn’t need them! She doesn’t need anybody!

She already had a few suspects in mind, people who could have operated Monokuma and the gun that fired who weren’t in the room. There were only a few people confirmed to not be in the ballroom: Tsumugi Shirogane (Miu hasn’t seen that assless weeb in months now), a nameless participant and a nameless Danganronpa official, Mukuro Ikusaba (some chick from the first season), a few guards, and Tenko. The same Tenko who has been missing in action, completely offline and uncommunicative. Pretty damn suspicious, if you asked Miu.

The cameras were rather foreign to her. She hasn’t worked-- Well, her false memories tell her-- that she hasn’t worked with cameras of that caliber, but if she got a closer look at it she’d definitely be able to tell. Hiyoko and Ibuki were also damn suspicious, as well as anybody else who set them up. 

She’ll have to get K1-B0 to check out the cameras. But that would mean connecting them to the hotel’s wifi (which you have to PAY for) and then waiting a few hours, possibly a day, for K1-B0 to calibrate the network system. She would ask for help from the Ultimate Programer, who had actually done something incredibly similar in his own killing game, but Miu was already set on completing this herself.

“Well, Hiyoko was the one who had them installed,” Celestia says, turning to the dancer with a sly yet accusatory smile, “Is that not correct?”

The dancer stammers, “Wh-- Are you accusing me of something, you edgy whore!? I had nothing to do with anything!!”

“I have barely pointed at you, yet you have already turned to insults as your leading argument,” the gothic girl sighs, glancing nonchalantly at her jet black nails.

“Celeste, how do you know Hiyoko set them up?” Chihiro questions.

“She had volunteered to do so. I saw her and a few others setting them up the other day.”

“Uh-- I also saw her,” Shuichi adds, a shaky finger raised in confirmation. Kaede nods sharply next to him, letting the group know that she, too, had seen her setting up the cameras. As well as Ibuki Mioda, also from the same season. It made Hiyoko look pretty goddamn suspicious. 

“I was just doing what I was told to do!!” Hiyoko replies defensively, “A-And we don’t even know if those things really _were_ guns, so drop it, already!!”

“Besides, the guns aren’t the main worry right now,” Fuyuhiko says, waving his phone to gesture the set of rules. 

Everybody has been telling Miu not to freak out about the incentive to murder. It seemed incredibly naive of these adults to tell her “not to worry” about the demand to murder not just one, but _thirty_ unknown people by the end of the day. Her class was treating this like an actual threat, have been communicating with each other not to panic or take things into their own hands. They were treating this threat as if it was the start of another killing game, as if their lives were undoubtedly on the line. 

Miu can’t imagine a universe where she forgets about the killing game so much that a demand such as the one made back in the ballroom was played off as a “silly prank”. But if it _was_ somebody trying to pull a trick, Miu will surgically attach their leg up their ass. She would be _furious._

Miu’s phone buzzes. It’s the group chat again. They’ve calmed down, if only slightly, but Kirumi wants to know if Kaede was still adamant on moving from the kitchen. With the tension steadily rising inside this room, the blonde definitely appeared as if she was ready to ditch with her friends. Miu personally didn’t _want_ to rejoin the group if it meant having to be locked up with that grape soda scented goblin or any of his cuckold friends. They can all sing kumbaya and braid each others hair for all she cared, but _Miu_ is taking the first opportunity she can to GTFO of the building, with or without--

That was uncalled for. Jesus, she’s such a dickhead. Was she always this much of a prick, or is she only realizing it after her entire personality was proven to be false? Or maybe she’s just stressed. Yeah! That’s it! She’s incredibly tired and stressed out, meaning now was not the time to question her morals and the legitimacy of her existence. Another time. Perhaps when they weren’t currently in the middle of a potentially life-threatening situation. 

_We’re leaving,_ Kaede confirms. Miu exhales shakily and stands.

She can’t remember when anybody had stated that Kaede was going to be the leader again. Maybe it was that “protagonistic” personality that Fuyuhiko had just joked about. And they all know just how far her “protagonistic” personality went last time. But whether it's prewritten or not, Kaede still feels a strong sense of responsibility to protect her friends, and Miu always gets this sickeningly warm feeling in her gut whenever she makes another corny speech about everybody being okay, or whatever.

The people in the kitchen quickly make plans to transfer them to where Kirumi was situated. They quickly instruct Peko to walk out alongside them, just in case the coast wasn’t as clear as they thought and somebody attempted to hurt them. Miu was planning on just booking it, but apparently everybody around her wanted to be cautious instead of fast.

Shuichi is still silent, eyebrows knotted as he stares down at his phone.

 _Any ideas, Mr. Detective?_ Kaede quips.

At her signing, the raven-haired teenager quickly blinks the thought away and shakes his head. He stashes his phone, ditching the engaging conversation he had been in for the past ten minutes. 

“Let’s go find the others,” he agrees.

Well, if _he_ didn’t have any ideas, then Miu would come up with so many that it made up for both of them. This time, she was going to be smarter. This time, she was going to be stronger, was going to be more vigilant. This wasn’t a joke to her, wasn’t some dumb prank. Kaede and Shuichi may have a “protagonistic personality”, but Miu wasn’t fucking dumb. She was gonna have this whole mess figured out before anybody even _thought_ about hurting her again.

Despite this, Miu lets out a chortle and quickly jeers a facetious, “Get a room!”

Nice. Throw them off her trail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have got plans for miu and this is going to be fun


	6. do what you want as long as you stay here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> miu is told not to go into a prohibited area. miu decides to go into that same prohibited area.

The hallways were empty. 

Everybody had the common sense to hide. After realizing the front doors wouldn’t open, every killing game participant had quickly holed themselves up into their rooms. Miu has only been in this hotel for about a day and a half, but she can confidently say it was the quietest she has ever seen this building. It does nothing but further her paranoia. 

The only people she’s seen have been scattered participants running from their previous hiding spot to a new one, voiceless or with as little words as possible. The mass panic and hysteria from the gunshot seems to have died down a little, but that being said-- not _entirely._ One participant, an Ultimate Conductor that had floated past the group, explained that Makoto had personally told them it wasn’t a threat, that no gunshot had _actually_ been fired. As far as Miu was concerned, she would not be returning to the Black Rose Ballroom to fact check it. Even if she wanted to, Peko, their group “babysitter”, wouldn’t allow it.

Kaede and Shuichi were still frequently checking their phones, making note to ask, out loud as well as over text, whether everybody was okay. Maki joined her boyfriend, as well as Gonta, in a hotel room on the third floor. Himiko got hella unlucky and was now stuck with Korekiyo in a vent. Kokichi had voluntarily moved to Kirumi’s location, the same location Miu’s group was heading towards. And dear god, was Miu not happy about that.

Most of the time, the strawberry blonde just didn’t reply to Kaede. She was too busy checking every corner, too busy searching the walls and checking quickly behind doors. Kaede was doing the same, almost, but was more concerned about finding Tenko than she was concerned about analyzing the hotel. Hemispherical cameras have been placed in almost every hallway, typical security cameras for a building such as this, however they held much more sinister undertones presently. They weren’t the bulky cameras set up in the ballrooms, but they still reeked of threat. Miu made a note to scowl deeply at every one she passed.

“Yo, Bakamatsu. Did I not tell you this convention was fishy as shit?” she says, glancing around nervously, “Because I remember telling you, _very_ fuckin’ clearly, that this convention smelled fishier than your--”

“Miu, please keep it down. We don’t know who is out here,” Peko very hurriedly interrupted, before the joke went any further.

Miu frowns, “We’re being watched. It wouldn’t matter, either way!” 

“...We don’t even know if they have control of the cameras, yet,” Shuichi mumbles, voice kept quiet, “Do you really think so?”

“I _know_ so, limp dick! If they’ve got control of the doors, then they’ve got control of the cameras,” she turns up towards the security cameras, flipping them off with both hands, “Ey! Whoever is pulling this shit is about to get a new one ripped into ‘em!”

“Again, please try to keep your voice down,” Peko advises.

Miu agrees, but secretly rolls her eyes. Whatever, lady. 

_She’s just throwing a hissy fit because she doesn’t want to see Kokichi again,_ Shuichi translates for Kaede.

It’s true, but Miu would never agree out loud. She hates looking at that guy. She can tolerate being around Gonta if there were other people in the room with her, but Kokichi was a whole other question. Whenever they share the same space, Miu can’t help but feel this overbearing sensation of dread, a heavy feeling of fear and paranoia sitting stubbornly in her stomach. She loathes that feeling, and therefore, by extension, loathes him.

It’s _not_ guilt. She keeps trying to tell herself that, but guilt manages to rise up through her throat, anyways. It was stupid to feel guilty over a plan that had been prewritten for her. Even if the plan involved murdering someone, even if the plan was so brilliant that it would have killed her entire class if she had succeeded, leaving her as the sole, selfish survivor, Miu Iruma did _not_ feel guilty about it. 

That wasn’t the truth, but she would repeat it out loud to others and beat it so harshly into her brain that she begins to believe it herself. 

“Fake news!” she protests, “It is _not_ just that!! Yelling in this situation is totally called for!!” she sighs, demeanor suddenly shrinking, “This whole thing is giving me the goddamn willies…….”

“...It’s a thousand of us versus whoever is behind all of this. And we’re not even sure if they have that much power, yet. It could have just been a simple interference in the system,” Shuichi offers, “I-I think we’ll be okay.”

Kaede frowns sympathetically, patting Miu’s shoulder in support but saying nothing past that.

They pass the door to the basement. Miu can tell because the door had been opened, presumably as Danganronpa officials enter and exit to search for their culprit. Behind the open door is a metal staircase that leads straight down, a few visible officials loitering awkwardly at the bottom. The lighting down there is dark, seemingly only brightened by a few low-hanging light bulbs. Miu expressed keen interest in checking that area out instead of, you know, being confined in a tiny bathroom with her murderer and the person who devised her murder, but she was promptly denied.

The security department must be down there. If she can get access to their computers, she would be able to power up K1-B0 with no problem at all. It’s just highly unlikely that Danganronpa would allow this rabid teenager loose amidst the important devices and technology they have in the basement.

While Miu daydreams, the others engage in quiet conversation. Attempting to ease the tension a little.

“So… Season two, right?” Shuichi asks awkwardly, starting the discussion after a nudge from Kaede, “...What’s it like being an OG?”

Peko exhales through her nose, thoroughly humored by the question. Her eyes don’t leave from in front of her, a rather conflicted flurry of emotion quickly flashing through her ruby irises.

“...You get over it,” she hums.

 _How long ago did you wake up from the simulation?_ Kaede questions, with help from Shuichi translating.

“Well… let’s see… Super Danganronpa 2 started when I was a freshman… and the last season I was in ended when… so that would make it…” she purses her lips, mentally calibrating, “Six years ago now? They’ve asked me back a few times, so the timing is fairly rough.”

“Asked you back?” Miu echoes bluntly, distaste dripping in her tone, “Asked you fuckin’ _back?”_

“How are things with your class?” Shuichi continues, not intentionally trying to cut Miu off but genuinely invested in Peko and her experience, “Are things as awkward with you guys as they are with our class?”

She smiles, however remorseful, “We get along alright, I suppose. But there are some things that will always be a sore subject,” she flickers a glance over at Miu, having noticed her hesitance towards meeting Kokichi again, “I’m sure you understand.”

Unfortunately, yes. Miu consistently speaks with about two people from her class: Kaede and Rantaro. Everybody else was either too chummy with another person to include her, too attached to horrible memories, or incredibly creepy. Or, in Kokichi’s case, all of the above.

Her partners keep talking with Peko, but Miu intentionally blocks them out. With how willingly Peko was answering and averting the subject, it’s clear she’s trying desperately to revert back to normal, as if that stunt back in the ballroom had never happened, that the only thing they needed to be concerned about was finding whoever pulled that “epic prank”. They were placing too much trust in the company, too much trust in Team Danganronpa to unlock the front doors, to explain everything that has happened. 

What if they couldn’t explain everything? What if this was a serious threat? The more Miu thought about it, the more severe it became. The list of rules seemed definite, and she wasn’t about to be the one to break them to check if they were real or not. Shuichi had already attempted calling the outside multiple times, so surely if the rules were real, he would have been… _hurt_ for that, right? What would happen then? If they discovered that this was real? The time limit seemed pretty fixed, pretty irrefutable. And Miu knows what had happened the last time they were given a time limit to kill. Her friend stood next to her, living with the consequences of that time limit to this day. What if they had to do it all over again? What if they couldn’t find the thirty traitors by the end of the day?

_What if they had to start picking random people to kill?_

Kaede interrupts that rather morbid train of thought with a quick tap on the shoulder and a cautious gesture to ask if she was alright. Miu, wanting to keep quiet as Shuichi chats enthusiastically with Peko, replies with a simple shrug and nothing more. She points back at the blonde, boomeranging the question back at the former pianist, to which Kaede mimics her shrug. Miu snorts unattractively. She can’t help the tiny smile riding up her face.

“I’m telling you, I wasn’t doing anything!”

It’s a voice from around the corner, one that clearly was ignoring the possible threat of danger and instead shouted without fear of harm. Peko gestures for the group to silence, leading them closer to the wall.

Another person from around the corner sighs heavily, “I thought I told you to not to get in trouble. In fact, I believe that was the _only_ rule I gave you: _Don’t get in trouble--_ ”

“Whatever, tight-ass. I was just trying to help!!”

“By strutting around like you own the place? Are you aware of the Pandora’s Box you would be opening if people found out who you w--” the group turns around the corner, halting the conversation in its tracks. Byakuya turns to them, nodding stiffly, “Hello, Peko. Others.”

Miu’s mouth twitches downwards at being grouped as an “other”. Kaede and Shuichi meekly gesture their hellos back, recognizing him as important and therefore being polite. Apparently, Shuichi’s group had been escorted around the hotel by Byakuya, Makoto, and Kirigiri, so he must have been introduced to this man already. Miu’s group, who had arrived way too early for their own good (Kaede’s idea-- Miu had complained the entire way there), had been shown around by Chihiro and that Ultimate Moral Compass guy.

She didn’t recognize the girl he was talking to. It was some chick with dark hair and alarming green contacts that fooled exactly nobody. She clutched onto a walking stick with her right hand, her phone held in her left. Half of her face was covered with a dark red, velvet face mask. Noticing the group turning the corner, the corners of her eyes crinkle with a smile.

“Where exactly are you headed?” Byakuya asks firmly.

“The women's restroom. Their friends are hiding in there,” Peko answers, gesturing at the three of them.

The Ultimate Affluent Progeny shakes his head, holding up his hand to stop them, “That won’t be possible. A more formal announcement will come soon, but we need everybody back in their hotel rooms.”

“What? Hell no,” Miu immediately refuses, “Take us to our friends or let us out of this goddamn hotel!”

Kaede shoots her a warning look. _Dial it down,_ she’s implying without gestures. Miu’s confident expression crumbles immediately. 

The girl next to Byakuya, despite half of her face being covered, looks highly amused. She’s high. Miu knows what high looks like, and she is high. The strawberry blonde has no clue how she smuggled drugs into the building, considering the copious amounts of security they had to pass through just to enter the hotel. Why was she allowed to keep drugs? Medical reasons? Maybe Miu should get on her good side. For totally unsuspicious reasons….that don’t involve asking for weed………...

Byakuya obviously wasn’t thrilled about having to manage a bunch of teenagers, clearly holding enough on his plate already, “We’re working on that. But for now, we need everybody back in their hotel rooms so nobody interferes--” he shoots a backhanded glare at the girl next to him, “--with our work.”

The girl next to him shrugs, before returning her gaze back to the group, “Hey… you’re Miu Iruma, right? Huge fan! Sucks what happened in that fourth trial, though,” Miu visibly flinches, blinking in initial shock. Before anybody could reply or tell the girl off for that rather blunt reminder, she continues, “Season 53, right? Koko’s season?”

Who the fuck was Koko? Now that Miu thought about it, there were a few people in her class who could have easily claimed that nickname: Himi _ko_ , Ten _ko_ , _Ko_ rekiyo, _Ko_ kichi. Hell, any of the names starting with K, if she were grasping at straws.

Despite Byakuya clearly glaring at her, heavily implying that she shouldn’t introduce herself, the girl continues, “Sakine Hujomon, Ultimate Chess Player. You--” she points at Miu, “--seemed totally interested in heading to the basement too, right?”

She must have caught Miu sending not-so-subtle glances at the basement door. Perhaps Sakine had been caught trying to sneak in there herself, which was why Byakuya had been telling her off. She must be rallying the troops, trying to get Miu to agree with her. Which the former inventor did, wholeheartedly, showing this by nodding vigorously. 

“No. I have told you once, and I am telling you again. Only authorized personnel are allowed down there,” Byakuya halts, his brow furrowing, “Peko, I advise you take this group back up to their rooms. They can text their little friends to do the same.”

“Why the fuck _can’t_ we go down there? Scared that a teenager can figure it out before you?” Miu sneers immodestly, “Let me and my gorgeous brain in there, and your culprit would be figured out in a heartbeat!” 

“Yeah! Hogging the basement all to yourselves is so _boring…._ ” Sakine agrees, revelling in the disharmony Miu was causing.

“Please return to your rooms. Now,” Byakuya orders.

Miu scoffs, “What if I _don’t?_ The fuck are you gonna do, _throw me out_ of the hotel? _Do it,_ pussy! You won’t!”

 _Sorry,_ Kaede repeatedly signs, nervously pulling Miu backwards before wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders, guiding her back down the hallway. Byakuya sighs heavily, mumbling something into an earpiece and returning to his rather agitated conversation with Sakine.

“Wait--” Shuichi attempts, pulling away from the group in hopes of an answer from Byakuya, “What’s happening with the threat? What are you doing about it? We deserve to kn--”

“Everything is going to be handled, and you do _not_ have permission to act on this threat. Is that what you are implying?”

Shuichi very nearly blanches, “N-No-- Of course not--”

“Rooms, please.”

Miu shoots one last longing glance at the basement before the group hastily turns back around, locating the nearest elevator. She’s going to get into that security room. Miu Iruma is passionate about it, and that means she isn’t going to stop thinking about it until it’s done.

“You’re no fun,” she hears Sakine tease venomously, before her voice disappears down the hallway, “Never were, tight-ass.”

-=+=-

The silence was the worst part about being in that hotel room. 

Gonta had tried to warn them in the group chat; Many of the hotel rooms weren’t opening for a lot of people, the electronic keys having been faulty and bugging out for a while now. The first hotel room that her class managed to open was Kaito and Maki’s. Nobody else's had opened, and Miu didn’t even get the chance to attempt opening her own hotel room before she was shoved into hiding by the others. That meant her entire class had been shoved into the same room. That meant her entire class was finally meeting with each other face-to-face.

That meant her entire class was sitting around uncomfortably, avoiding each other’s gazes and desperately trying to distract themselves with something else.

Not _everybody_ was in the same room, per say. Himiko, Korekiyo, and Tenko all managed to escape this torturous group bonding. But surely, with how high tensions were currently, this would not go well either way.

Somebody had turned on the tiny television, whether it was Angie or Ryoma she was uncertain, but many were watching it intently. At first they had switched on the news, hopeful that somebody was perhaps talking about the situation they were in, but found out rather quickly that nobody outside knew what was happening inside the Cypress Hotel. Kirumi had assured them that the threat had only just happened, that it was all under control, before she switched over to a funny kids channel.

Kaede was finishing up plaiting the second french braid into Miu’s hair, the two of them occupying the right side of the double bed. Usually they were so talkative (in their own way) to each other, but now they found themselves joining in on the collective tense silence. Miu occasionally flashed Kaede looks over her shoulder, pursing her lips when another classmate says something particularly tense or flipping her off playfully when the other girl tugs on her hair too roughly.

“There was supposed to be a formal announcement about what’s happening… I don’t know what happened to that,” Shuichi mumbles nervously.

“People are calming down. A lot of them were saying the gunshot wasn’t real. That it didn’t hit anybody,” Ryoma summarizes, “So hopefully they get the lock situation figured out soon.”

Kaito notices the general awkwardness and silently asks, “...Should we discuss… the “thirty traitors” thing, or…”

“No,” everybody says in unison.

Kokichi hums bitterly at something on his phone, before declaring out loud, “Himiko isn’t responding to my texts anymore,” he notices Shuichi exhale in concern, “I’m being ghosted! Not literally, I hope.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ. Can you go five seconds without being a little shit?” Miu can’t help but retort. Kokichi grins back at her, eyes narrowed in sarcasm and distaste. A sharp chill runs up her spine, but she doesn’t recoil. 

Kirumi sighs and tries to mask the oncoming argument by turning the television up. Somebody, probably Gonta, had placed her in the armchair in the corner of the room. Her wheelchair was back in the Black Rose Ballroom, and her walking stick was locked in her hotel room. Somebody, a Future Foundation member that checked up on them a bit ago, had promised to retrieve the wheelchair for her, but has not returned in a while. Considering how nobody was going anywhere anytime soon, it wasn’t as much as an issue to the girl.

“That was in poor taste,” Angie agrees with the former inventor. She’s perched on the arm of the lounge chair, the same one Kirumi sat on. Her eyebrows are furrowed and her usually creepy smile has disappeared entirely. 

“Shuuiiichiiiii!!” Kokichi sobs insincerely, “I’m being ganged uuuuupp oooonnnnn!”

The detective ignores his crocodile tears, “She’s still with Korekiyo, she’s just taking a break from her phone. It’s been freaking her out.”

“Still nothing from Tenko?” Angie asks.

“Nothing yet,” Shuichi replies, eyes lowering to the floor.

Back to silence. Kokichi flashes Miu one last cocky smirk before returning to his phone. She scowls back.

 _They wouldn’t tell us anything,_ Kaede says with a pout, pausing for a second to reach for a hair tie, _They just told us it was all under control._

“Yeah! If Byakuya could take that stick out of his ass for five seconds and let me handle the computers, we’d be out of this shitty hotel already!” Miu huffs sourly.

“So much confidence! If only you weren’t such an overcompensating whore,” Kokichi replies with a nonchalant shrug.

“Wh-- _Hey!”_ she bites back, teeth bared. His insults cut a lot more harshly outside of the simulator. At first she had let him win arguments, recoiling everytime he called her a name, but at this point she was just angry at him.

“U-Um… Gonta thinks we-- _I_ think we should have more… faith in Makoto,” Gonta expresses slowly from where he sat in the corner of the room, “Others trust him very much! He know what he is doing.”

Gonta can go on and on about holding faith in the people around him, but Miu knows one thing for certain: she doesn’t trust these people. She was written as an incredibly untrusting person, and that very much still remains true outside of the killing game. Even _more_ so, perhaps. Any of these people could snap at any moment and go ballistic with a knife. Any of the blackened could wake up one morning and think, “You know what? Maybe I _was_ right to kill,” and hunt down another unsuspecting victim. Could be someone else. Could be Miu. Either way, she really only trusted Kaede and Rantaro, and even then she was aware of both of their fallibilities. As they were aware of hers. Distrust was mutual. 

Miu could see anybody in this class being one of those “traitors” Monokuma had mentioned. Even if she didn’t know what exactly being a traitor meant, she wouldn’t be surprised if any of her classmates up and betray her. That paranoia is causing her to grow bitter, to retort harshly when called on and sit restlessly where she is hidden. She needs to get out of here before things go any more south. 

She should try the front doors again, if this K1-B0 endeavor doesn’t work out. Last time she saw them, it was mainly glass. She was surprised nobody had grabbed a chair and chucked it through the opening doors. She would have assumed that with the riot that occurred after the gunshot, that somebody would have smashed it by now. Even if it was by accident. Was the glass impenetrable? 

If the glass wouldn’t break, then it really all came down to K1-B0 and the computers in the basement. She needed to get out of here. And she can start by--

“I’m going to the basement,” She declares abruptly, as soon as Kaede is finished with the second braid, “Bakamatsu, you’re coming with.”

Kaede raises her hands to begin objecting, but ends up shrugging and following her to the door.

“Woah, uh-- Didn’t Byakuya say not to go down there…?” Shuichi asks.

“I don’t care _what_ Daddy Long Legs has to say. I’m not just gonna sit around and do shit-all!!”

“We _are_ going to do something, but the doors are locked. People are working on opening them,” Kirumi assures her, “Miu, I don’t believe this is the most rational idea.”

“When has she _ever_ been rational?” Kokichi plays along, “I will pay twenty dollars to whoever can name one rational thing that cum slut has done!”

Groans ripple through the room, people murmuring objections under their breaths and silently pleading for the pair not to burst into spontaneous argument. Especially when everybody was already so stressed.

“W-Well at least I’m _trying_ to do something!” Miu spits, hand hovering over the door handle, “You lazy motherfuckers are just gonna sit and _wait_ for your ass to get handed to ya, huh?”

“We can figure out the situation without making ourselves an annoyance. Throwing yourself into prohibited areas is just stupid,” Maki says.

“Miu, I see where you’re coming from… But I think it’s best just to lay low for now,” Rantaro says. He’s sat on the floor, a glass of water in his hands, “That last season already put us on a lot of people’s bad side. Acting up will only make people hate us more.”

They can all agree on that, at least. Their season fucking sucked. A lot of people viewed them as less important, maybe not as “mature” or worthy of important details because of how poorly their season commenced. The season that ended all seasons. Miu really hates thinking about an entire nation of fans hating her guts, hating her personality, so she’ll ignore that fact to the best of her ability. If every killing game participant already hates them, then why would it matter if she broke a few rules?

“Wh-- You, too?” she replies to Rantaro, wincing internally at how hurt she sounded, “You’re really just gonna… _wait_ for things to get better?”

 _Yeah, come on, guys,_ Kaede says, signing more calmly, _Miu has a great idea, and she needs to get to the computers in the basement._

“Then let Miu go by herself,” Maki replies coldly, “This seems like a one-person job.”

She shakes her head, _No, I’m going with her. I want to figure out who’s behind all of this._

“Yeah! ‘Cuz unlike you losers, Bakamatsu actually wants to get out of this fuckin’ place before people start ripping each other to shreds!” Miu sneers. Her classmates shift uncomfortably at her accusations. Kokichi notices them beginning to back down and quickly shifts his body to face the two girls at the door.

“Aw, that’s so cute!” Kokichi chirps, his smile reaching his ears. That smile always meant something bad. Miu can not remember a moment where he smiled at her like that without pulling some kind of stunt, “Miu and Kaede are going mastermind hunting! Because that went _so well_ for you last time!! Right, guys?”

Kaede visibly stiffens. Shuichi, who had been standing next to Kokichi, turns towards him slowly with a low, warning glare. The silence of the room becomes piercing, horridly tense and uncomfortable, as if everybody suddenly held their breath. Nobody moves, frozen in place, creating an incredibly rigid freeze frame of a motionless class. They had all previously taken this unspoken vow, a silent promise that nobody would ever mention anything about another person’s death. It was always this asshole who brought it up again. The only one stupidly brave enough to speak this taboo out loud.

Miu turns to her left. She’s the only one of her classmates who’s moved. Everybody else glares at Kokichi, or, in Kaito’s case, awkwardly stares out of the window. They were on the seventh floor. It would be quite the jump if he could get the window open.

Miu can see the gears turning in Kaede’s head. She had been the one to suggest finding the person behind all of this, the one who suggested that a thousand against one is an easy battle to win. But now her eyebrows were furrowing, her arms crossed against her stomach, her stillness inherently terrifying yet definite at the same time. Kaede was having second thoughts. Her gaze was very slowly shifting, presumably involuntarily, over to Rantaro. She was having second thoughts, and she was too disturbed by the abrupt memory to declare it herself.

Kokichi always managed to fuck up Miu’s plans in one way or another, didn’t he?

“Fine. Y’know what? Stay here, Kaede,” Miu says cautiously to the blonde, before returning sharply to Kokichi’s gaze, “I’ll do it my-fuckin-self.”

She marches disdainfully to the door, shoving her feet into her boots and grabbing at the handle.

 _Wait,_ Kaede tries to pause, after she wakes up from her dissociative trance, _Sorry, I’m coming wi--_

“Forget it. It’s a one woman job, Blondie! I’ll--” the next words stop at her teeth, sitting unpleasantly on her tongue. She doesn’t _want_ to return to this hotel room, in fact she has every intention of leaving, “...Be right back.”

Nobody objects. They don’t want the argument. Rantaro says something about her “being careful” and “making the right choices”, but ultimately knows that she’s way too stubborn to change her mind. Kaede’s mouth is hanging open as if she was trying to say something out loud, as if there were words she wanted to speak audibly to her, but her eyes glaze over once more and she’s stuck in deep thought again.

Was it selfish that Miu kinda… wanted somebody to stop her? To be a little more concerned? She couldn’t blame Kaede or Rantaro, Kokichi’s comment obviously rubbed them the wrong way, but she had every intention of blaming the others. 

_Maybe, if you wanted more people to be concerned about you, you should consider being a little fuckin’ nicer, asshole._

“If anybody snitches on me….” she tries to think of something witty to say, but the silence of the room is so harrowing and desolate that all she is able to mutter is a thin, “Fuck you.”

Miu exits the hotel room, phone in hand, and slams the doors behind her. Somebody must have gotten up to lock it as soon as she entered the hallway, because she hears a shrill _click_ as she stomps down to the elevators.

Nobody follows her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i made a collaborative playlist for my last story, and i really loved listening to that playlist while i wrote, so i started one for this story! it is once again collaborative, so if you have any songs you think fit with this story, feel free to add!! i always love listening to new music :DD
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2bwO6jgLgGv92p2ipbsqZS?si=F9skbjQGROaZvN7E-qAAmA


	7. i'm gonna win. i'm gonna try.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> miu. miu NO.

The first thing Miu runs into once she reaches the basement stairs is a cobweb.

Kaede likes to talk about karma a lot, how the universe knows you’re intentionally doing something bad and sends you bad luck in return. Miu wasn’t one to believe in any divine force, or whatever, but she’s had an awful feeling deep in her stomach ever since she opened the door to the basement. Byakuya and Sakine had left the floor already, the basement door wide open and unguarded, as if it was inviting her to make horrible life choices. Running into the cobweb was the repercussion for entering somewhere she shouldn’t have.

The stairs being made of steel definitely did not help with her sneaking around. Her boots clunk against the path, echoing throughout the basement. It was really lucky that nobody downstairs seemed all too fussed with her footsteps. They were probably expecting people to run in and out of the basement, Danganronpa officials sprinting to communicate with each other, Future Foundation members exiting the area frequently to make sure the residents of the hotel were calm and not trying to do exactly what Miu was doing now. 

The lighting was minimal, warm colors flickering over the concrete walls. For such an elegant hotel, they sure didn’t spend much time on the interior decoration of the basement. Many of the walls that divided separate rooms were either concrete or chain-link fences. Danganronpa Officials and Future Foundation members were scattered, talking busily amongst each other, many of them sitting on the floor with their own computers on their laps. 

Miu is able to navigate through the basement rather efficiently. If she kept her head down, she didn’t appear that out of place; Practically everybody there was also in their casual clothes, with their nametags also on their colorful shirts. Miu very nearly rips her own nametag off but decides against it, opting for cohesion in order to blend in. From a distance she looks like another Danganronpa participant, not a teenager that snuck into a prohibited area. People mistake her for somebody older than she actually is all of the time. If nobody paid too much attention to her, she looked exactly like a lost Future Foundation member in her twenties.

The key was confidence. If she acted like she was exactly where she was supposed to be, nobody would actively attempt to disrupt the harmony by accusing her of being in a prohibited area.

One section near the entrance, shielded only by a chain-link fence, was being used as a makeshift interrogation site. They had some chick with crazy hair sitting in a chair, answering questions frantically.

“Ibuki really had no idea! I-I had no idea, _really!_ Skinny Byakuya told me to put them up, so I did! _”_ she says quickly to the man interrogating her, hands trembling in front of her, “I would have never put those cameras up if I… If I knew that…”

Hiyoko had worked with her. Miu remembers seeing her setting up the bulky cameras in the Black Rose Ballroom. They had every right to suspect her, and quite frankly Miu would have stayed longer to overhear her interrogation if she wasn’t walking secretly through a prohibited area. Miu turns away before any more questions were asked. She had to find the security room. Her phone twitches restlessly in her hands as she searches through the hallways.

“They got armed guards ‘round the perimeters,” it’s another official on the opposite end of the room. He was conversing rather loudly to his partner, his voice booming over the horde of people, “I ain’t gonna be the one’ta check if their guns are real’er not--”

“People on the roof have been saying they’ve got watchtowers,” another one gossips.

_“Watchtowers?”_

Miu slinks past. People were definitely anxious, confused and alarmed by the threat. Nobody seems to be taking it entirely seriously, many of them still in utter disbelief about the entire thing or in straight up denial about another killing game happening. She passed by one conversation where a man jokingly took his two fingers and “shot” the other, both of them laughing at it as if it was the funniest punchline in the world. She nearly walked up and suckerpunched them right there.

The security room was very barely occupied. It seems not many people were too keen on guarding the surveillance cameras as there wasn’t much to guard, and most of the screens seemed to be out of commission. Miu lingered outside of the concrete rooms, huddling amidst other officials and inconspicuously tapping at nothing on her phone.

“I just can’t understand what she was trying to do--” the first voice from inside the security room was somebody she hadn’t been introduced to. It was definitely that protagonist from Season 2. Hajime Hinata, wasn’t it? Miu remembers watching some of his season, “Nothing seems to be tampered with, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t annoying…”

“I don’t think this is the matter we should be discussing. There are more pressing issues at hand,” that voice was certainly Kyoko Kirigiri. She was diverting attention away from somebody. Were they talking about Sakine? It was the only person Miu recalled trying to get into the basement...

“Yeah, Kyoko’s right! She was just nervous by the threat, that’s all,” that was Makoto Naegi, “She should be returning to her friends now. People have calmed down a little, so I think we should--”

“Is this a meeting discussing what to do about the threat? Or an escape meeting?” this person Miu didn’t know the name of, but it was definitely another protagonist, “We’ve already got a group of people attempting to notify the outside from the roof, and a few others are trying to open the other ballrooms. I think discussing the weapons in the Iris Ballroom is also an important matter-- If those guns get into the wrong people’s hands, we could be in some serious--”

“An escape meeting,” Hajime clarifies. It’s clear now that he’s typing at the computers, but has come to a sudden stop, “The Iris Ballroom should be for another time. The cameras in the Black Rose Ballroom should also be looked at, if you haven’t got people on that already, Naegi.”

“Already on it,” his voice was getting closer… in fact it almost seemed as if-- _Shit,_ _he’s leaving the security room,_ “A few people with technology-involved talents are checking it out. I haven’t been checking up on them. I’ve been pretty busy getting people to calm down.”

The door opens and Miu very quickly ducks behind it, slamming herself against the wall in some rather pathetic attempt to blend in. Her bright pink jacket didn’t provide much help in camouflaging herself into the grey concrete, however the group exiting the security room were too preoccupied talking amongst each other to turn around and notice Miu. She slips into the security room with relative ease. As soon as she enters the room, she understands why.

The computers were super fucking old. Clearly the group would have received no information from them, unless they had an outside source (like K1-B0) with them. Miu spends a second with her nose wrinkled in disgust at the poorly constructed, horribly outdated, terribly clunky piece of garbage in front of her before she realizes she needs to shut the door. She flips around with a small gasp, grabbing the handle and quickly moving to close it behind her.

Kyoko makes direct eye contact. 

At first Miu freezes, certain she had been caught before she had even attempted to do anything. She can feel her grip tighten against her phone, her eyes widening pathetically as she stills entirely. Their intense eye contact does not break, and it feels as if Miu doesn’t breathe for the duration. Kyoko’s boyfriend was behind her and she would certainly snitch on the strawberry blonde, proving everybody in the former inventor’s class correct and Miu horribly, horribly wrong about attempting to come in here.

But after a solid beat of stillness, Kyoko turns back around.

“Any updates on Atomu?” she questions, leading the group down the basement hallway with more urgent matters on her mind.

Hajime purses his lips, “...Mikan’s doing the best she can, but the wound is pretty bad. I don’t think telling everybody is the…”

Their voices fade. Miu takes the opportunity to immediately close the door, locking it swiftly behind her. 

“Jesus fuckin’ _Christ!”_ she hisses into the air, releasing a heavy exhale of relief. Did she just get away with that? Did she _seriously_ get away with that?

She scrambles for the computers, frantically searching for output wires and chords, _anything_ she could grasp that could be of assistance. As soon as she has a good handful of black wires, Miu hastily drops her phone on the desk, activating the K1-B0 program at the same time as she activates the computer. She checks over her shoulder at the door. No movement, yet. She’s become hyper aware of anything that lurked behind her. Ever since the simulator, at least.

The computer dialled up slowly. K1-B0 was much faster.

Considering how Miu hadn’t developed a body for the Ultimate Robot, K1-B0 had been reduced to a voice program buried in her phone. The application blinks awake, a pixelated face filling the screen and looking rather confusedly around the location Miu found herself in.

Instead of a greeting, K1-B0’s pixelated eyes lock onto the strawberry blonde.

“Miu, what did you do,” they deadpan.

“Wh-What!? I-I haven’t even-- You-- You haven’t--”

“Is everything alright? Are you in a safe location?” K1-B0 continues, head bobbing as they search the room, “Does Kaede know where you are? You know how worried she was the last time you woke up in a--”

“What happened to ‘good morning’? To ‘hello, Miu, how are you’??” the former inventor interrogates, her volume lowered.

“Oh! Forgive me,” they synthetically clear their throat, “Good morning, Miu. How are you?”

Miu rolls her eyes, but can’t help but smile fondly. They haven’t spoken in quite some time, considering how Miu was trying to rebuild their body before they interacted again. With one fleeting glance at the locked door behind her, she takes note of the quiet. Nobody had suspected anything. Yet.

“It’s really fuckin’ nice to hear from ya again, Keebs,” she admits after a released breath.

“You, as well!” they return happily, grinning widely before continuing, “Now that formalities are over-- _What_ have you gotten yourself into?”

“Alright, listen--” Miu checks over her shoulder really quickly, “I need you to find somebody for me. I’ve got this shady ass text on my phone from an unknown number that could help you, and security cameras in front of me, as well. Just download the information from the computers so I can ditch this fuckin’ place, already.”

K1-B0 raises an eyebrow, “...Am I right to assume you are not supposed to have access to these security cameras?”

Miu stammers, arms recoiling as she quickly checks behind her again, “Sh-Shut up, ya fuckin’ narc! Just download the fuckin’ information, already! What do you need, a USB cord? I’m thinkin’ an iOS 8-Pin?”

“Preferably. But, Miu, if you’re not allowed in this place, then I can not sit by comfortably and assist you in illegal activity--”

“Download the fucking information, K1-B0,” she snaps, plugging in wires and smashing her hands against the keyboards to get the computer working, “Th-This is serious.”

They sit in tense silence. Miu’s rather frazzled appearance does not go by unnoticed, her frequent misclicks as her movements grow more sporadic and rapid, her repetitive glances behind her at the locked door. All signs of clear panic. K1-B0’s eyebrows furrow in clear concern, their analysis of the room finalized.

“Cypress Hotel?” they question, the security footage beginning to download as shown through a slowly moving loading bar, “Oh, has the convention started? Where is everybody?”

Miu purses her lips in visible disdain, teeth gritting behind her lips. The _‘everyone’_ that K1-B0 was referring to had abandoned her back in the hotel room. The _‘convention’_ was yet another shitty hellhole that she found herself stuck in, another Academy for Gifted Juveniles situation except everything is five times more awkward between the class and she has to cooperate with the people who murdered her. Danganronpa Officials flood the area around her and have been absolutely no help to her, Future Foundation officials are such kissasses that they don’t acknowledge anything being wrong, and the entire situation was growing increasingly more and more severe and desperate.

K1-B0 blinks a few times before attempting to start the conversation again, “Miu…? What’s happening, are you alright?”

Miu doesn’t answer, flicking rather redundantly through the camera footage. The angles from the bulky cameras in the Black Rose Ballroom, the alleged weapons, were not similar to the angles visible in the security cameras. This footage derived from the hemispherical cameras overhead, not the ones that Hiyoko and Ibuki assisted in setting up. So who had access to the bulky cameras? Where was _that_ camera footage going? It certainly wasn’t going to the security system. 

She really hated not telling K1-B0 everything. She wasn’t sure why she was being so silent; Perhaps it was how rapid time had to move or her increasingly-annoying nerves getting the best of her. The situation would be better explained _after_ she’s escaped the basement. Preferably without getting caught.

K1-B0’s loading bar reaches about halfway. The information was being downloaded much slower than expected. Most likely due to how awful the computers were. Nothing to do with her brilliant cellular program (which is brilliant, by the way).

“Miu? I need to inform you that you have gone 20 seconds now without exhaling,” K1-B0 informs. Miu releases a heavy breath, eyes fixated on the security cameras, “You can tell me if something is wrong. We’re friends, after all!”

Miu wasn’t sure why that made her feel guilty. 

“Whaaaaaaaatever, Keebs,” she disregards, averting her gaze.

Both of them quieten once more. Miu shifts her glance awkwardly as K1-B0 undoubtedly notices her tapping against the keyboard is more about distracting herself than making actual progress.

“...How is Rantaro and Kaede? Are you still friends?” they’re trying to keep the conversation going, knowing full well that Miu wasn’t exactly in the mood for small talk.

“They’re fuckin’ fine. Damn, it hasn’t been that long!! What, you think one of ‘em bit the dust or some shit while you were gone?”

“It never hurts to ask! And no, I don’t think they died. I was only wondering if they’ve gotten over you, yet.”

Miu’s mouth drops in shock, lips curling upwards as she releases an airy laugh, “Whore!!!”

“I kid! I kid!” K1-B0 chuckles, “You know I’m kidding.”

“Yeah, yeah. Asshole,” she raps at the keyboard a few more times, “And to answer your question, they’re both…” her teeth grit once more, her answer suddenly less clear in the situation they were in currently. Especially right after Kokichi’s comment in the hotel room, “...fine. Kaede’s still livin’ with me and Rantaro’s up to his ass in legal shit, so.”

K1-B0 hums sympathetically, “And everybody else? How are they? I’d love to see them, after you’ve finished this illegal charade of yours.” 

Miu rolls her eyes once more, “They don’t give a shit about me, I don’t give a shit about them. It’s mutual.”

K1-B0 pauses for an awkward beat, “Um… Onto another subject-- While the information downloads, I took the liberty to perform a deepscan of your phone to analyze the text message you were referring to.”

“Oh, fuck yeah.”

“Although, I think we should also have a conversation about the…. Rather inappropriate images I found in your camera roll--”

“Who’s the cuck who sent the text?” she doesn’t wait for K1-B0 to answer, already pumping a celebratory fist in the air, “See? I fucking _told_ those losers I’d have everything figured out!! Sons of bitches didn’t listen to me!!”

K1-B0 winces at her proud expression, “Well-- I couldn’t find an exact person… I was only able to vaguely locate where it was sent from. I’m sure if given more time, I could--”

“Tell me,” Miu demands, voice less confident. She was certain she’d be over and done with all of this crap in no time. An easy escape was looking less and less reachable.

“Well, I know for certain the text was sent from inside the building.”

Miu’s stomach drops in her feet. Her heartbeat reaches her ears. It was perhaps the one thing she didn’t want to hear, that the assailant was _inside_ the building. This information was powerful. This information was horrifying, holding hideous implications that sat heavily in her gut. It could have been anybody. It could have been _any_ participant in the hotel. 

_It could have been somebody from her own--_

“Okay,” she mumbles as nonchalantly as she could possibly muster, avoiding eye contact with the program. She knows they were making concerned facial expressions, staring at her with confusion and sympathy, trying to grasp what was going on, “Anything else?”

“Well, there’s a--”

K1-B0 is rudely interrupted by a knock at the door. They had 30 percent more to download before the operation was complete.

Miu holds her breath, eyes widening and implying very heavily to the Ultimate Robot that they need to be quiet. There’s another knock at the door before the person behind it rattles at the doorknob, finding it locked from the inside.

“Who’s in here?”

 _Fuck._ It’s Byakuya.

Miu realizes quite quickly that there is no possible way she could escape this room without Byakuya knowing she snuck in here in the first place. There’s no place for her to hide. There’s no room for her to duck or shield herself. Eventually, Byakuya will find keys or break down the door, dragging her out of the room himself. All she can do now is leave with the information downloaded to her phone. That’s all she could do. That’s _all_ she could do.

The rattling continues. Byakuya is getting irritated. The frequent pounding against the door slams against Miu’s skull, accelerating her tapping against the keyboard as if it would do anything to quicken the download speed. Her movements once again become frenzied, her checks behind her more frequent and overwrought. 20 percent more. Fifteen percent more.

“K1-B0, hurry up!!” she hisses at her phone.

“Yelling at me does not make me finish any faster!!” the robot replies, a little too loudly for comfort. 

Miu bites her tongue, but ultimately is powerless against a flippant remark of, _“That’s what she said!!!”_

Maybe she’s been trying to mute her vulgarity outside of the simulator, but she can still appreciate a solid That’s What She Said joke. 

“Is this that kid from Season 53!?” Byakuya demands from the other side of the door, “What _is_ it with this season!?”

Why was he yelling as if she had done this before? As if her season was the most inconsiderate class out of all of them?

Miu realizes with sudden dread that she can’t speed anything up. Her last attempt to hasten the download ends with her slamming her hands against the keyboard, subsequently breaking the object as the spacebar remains stuck in its socket and a few letters pop off as well. It was an old keyboard. And it was now a broken keyboard, as well. K1-B0 was almost finished downloading. Just one more minute. She just needs a _little_ bit more time. Just a _little bit._

Byakuya stops rattling against the door. At first Miu revels in her tiny victory, before the horror of the situation returns. If Byakuya has left, that means he’s reaching for a key. That means once he comes back, he will crack the door open and rip Miu from the room. The download bar is almost entirely full, the operation is almost complete. Ten percent more. Five percent more.

_One percent--_

The door slams open. Miu flips herself around, shielding K1-B0 and her phone with her body, leaning rigidly against the desk. She opens her mouth to whip up some pathetic attempt at an excuse, but nothing falls out in time to beat Byakuya.

“Out. _Now,”_ he grits furiously, gestures pointed and sharp. Miu disconnects K1-B0 from behind her back, certain that the download was complete, before guiltily shuffling out of the door.

The basement was silent, everybody’s attention having been caught on the trespassing girl. She hunches over at their glowering stares, eyes averted to the floor and head permanently sunken downwards. Byakuya shuts the door behind them. The noise is almost like a signal of sorts, and, as if cued, the room begins to increase in volume. Miu can still feel their suspicious glances attached to her back, sending a sharp chill up her spine. She really hates this negative attention. She _really_ hates it.

Byakuya inhales to begin speaking, but the words stop short at his lips. He stares for a moment, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose in pure vexation.

“Why?” he demands pointedly.

Miu recoils, arms withdrawn to her chest, “Wh-- You’re just gonna yell at me in front of _everybody_ , old man!?”

“What were you doing in there?”

“Nothing!” Miu bites back, whiny and disrespectful.

Byakuya takes a long look at the closed door behind him, inhaling and exhaling in rhythm. In some backwards sort of way, it reminds Miu to breathe as well. She’s probably made a forever enemy with Byakuya, but at least he holds use in being a rather blatant breathing exercise.

“Here. I want you to take a look at this,” he orders.

He hands over a clipboard he had been holding in his hands. Miu grabs it with a snarky snarl. It’s a to-do list of everything Byakuya needs to get done today, with most of them rendered rather unimportant due to the current crisis. Some items on the list included opening the ballroom doors, organizing the Talent Swap groups, double checking on participants who have signed up for interviews, etc. Miu squints at it harshly, confused as to what it meant.

“Have you read it?” Byakuya asks. Miu nods stiffly, not looking up at him, “Good. Now that you’ve proven you’re not illiterate, I want you to point to where exactly on this list it says, ‘ _B_ _abysit the cast of Season 53’.”_

Miu realizes he’s being sarcastic and hastily shoves the clipboard back at him, “I just wanted to fuckin’ help!”

“If we wanted your help, we would have _asked_ for your help,” he retorts, “We have caught your class trespassing not once, but _twice_ now--”

“Ey, Daddy Long Legs, that ain’t fuckin’ true! I’ve only been down ‘ere _once!”_

He sighs, face twitching in confusion for the briefest of moments before he quickly returns to his stoic, frustrated demeanor, “And it will be the last. Now, come on--”

He reaches for her shoulders to escort her out of the basement. His sudden arm extension startles her, the sharp movement too quick for her liking and much too jarring for her to rationally comprehend.

“Don’t touch me!” she yells fraughtly, shoving her phone into her pocket and quickly shuffling out of the basement. Her sudden call once again silences the basement, allowing her footsteps to echo off of the walls as she shamefully walks to the exit. People watch her leave. Makoto and Kyoko stare at her with varying levels of confusion and almost parental concern, furthering Miu’s shame and repulsion towards the basement.

Almost mockingly, knowing that he was chastising her in front of everybody at this point, Byakuya makes one last request.

“When we tell you not to go into prohibited areas, perhaps… _don’t_ go into a prohibited area,” he asks coldly, “And pass the message onto that Chabashira girl, won’t you?”

 _...Tenko?_

She isn’t allowed to turn back around to ask. Somebody shuts the door on her.

-=+=-

Kaede greets her down the hall.

Miu didn’t say it out loud, too baffled by the information she had just received to even begin processing anything audible, but she was really happy Kaede came to meet her. She didn’t want to be alone. She really didn’t. Not after being yelled at in front of every person deemed respectable in the hotel. Not after learning the threat had been sent by somebody within the building. Not after learning that Tenko had A) lied about going to the bathroom, B) went to the fucking _basement_ for some reason, and C) got _caught_ in said basement in the same room Miu had been caught in, heavily implying she was doing something with the computers. And Tenko wasn’t a computer person. Miu knows this because Tenko and Himiko had called her one time, late at night, in desperate need for her help on how to upload Minecraft onto Tenko’s laptop.

Miu doesn't trust Tenko, and she has every right not to. She isn't going to be stupid. She isn't going to be naive. Tenko is suspicious, and Miu will treat her as such. Even as her heartbeat accelerates, her pace hastening with it, Miu will not surrender to some faint hope that being a nice person means immediate trust. Nice does not equal good. Her genial murderer had drilled that dreaded sentiment directly into her skull.

Nice does _not_ equal good. 

Kaede sees her speed-walking down the hall, Miu’s icy-blue irises wide as she escapes from the basement. With furrowed eyebrows, the former pianist tilts her head to the side.

 _Did you get caught?_ She asks, genuinely concerned, _What happened, are you o--_

Miu says nothing, grabbing Kaede by the waist and hurriedly escorting her down the hallway, making frequent notes to check behind the pair and Miu whisks her friend away. 

_Miu. Miu, you’re scaring me, what’s going on,_ Kaede is signing, roughly keeping pace with the former inventor.

Miu halts suddenly, double checking the area to make sure nobody was around. The cameras were too far away from sight to catch the pair at a clear angle, and she was certain none of the hotel’s janky-ass security footage held audio, anyway.

“I-It’s fuckin’ Tenko!” Miu whispers disquietly, clawing onto Kaede’s arms and shaking her violently, “It’s-- Fuckin’ K1-B0 told-- She--”

 _Slow down!_ Kaede requests, before gripping onto Miu’s hands and throwing them off of her, _I’m getting a headache._

Miu’s rambling drowns out Kaede’s gestures, “I put K1-B0 in the shit and they did the crap and the thing told me that the threat was from _inside_ the building--” she pauses to inhale, running out of breath from her incoherent babbling, “The text came from _inside_ the building--”

 _What does this have to do with Tenko?_ Kaede questions cautiously.

“Listen to me, Blondie! Tenko wasn’t in the fuckin’ crapper! She was in the basement!! She was in the basement usin’ her lesbian voodoo to hijack those bastard computers and--”

 _You know this for sure?_ The blonde raises an eyebrow, _You know it was her for sure?_

“It-- Byakuya said to pass on the message to her and-- And I… So that means….”

Kaede allows a moment to briefly pass before she administers reason into the conversation. Miu takes the pause to silence her breathing, coordinating her thoughts and organizing this new information into sentences that were somewhat understandable. It was quite astonishing that the pair had reached the stage of friendship that allowed Kaede to easily interpret Miu’s word vomit.

 _Miu,_ she begins after a moment. The blonde’s sign for Miu’s name was a mix of the signs ‘robot’ and ‘bitch’, an immodest joke they had made up one of the first days they started classes and ended up sticking with.

“Kaede,” Miu boomerangs back.

 _You do this thing when you’re nervous where you accuse everyone of trying to hurt you,_ Kaede deadpans, _This is one of those times._

“Damn, bitch!!” Miu exhales shakily, “I’m too paranoid to be read like a fuckin’ book!!”

Kaede smiles, lips curling upwards, _Let’s move back to the hotel room, and you can tell me everything. Slowly._

“No, I’m not goin’ back,” Miu refuses, “Kokichi can suck my dick and balls, for all I care.”

The blonde sighs slightly through her nose. She hadn’t necessarily known Kokichi for that long during the killing game, and during the early stages he was _that_ much of a nuisance. All of her opinions were formed from an outsider's point of view, all of her knowledge of the former supreme leader supplied by Danganronpa and awkward group therapy sessions. She understood that Miu hated him, basically _everybody_ did at that point, so it wasn’t often that Kaede tried to get the pair to cooperate.

Miu recalls a location. With her newly created reputation with the Future Foundation and the Danganronpa Officials, it may just help to save face.

“Tell the group chat we’re heading to the roof. They’re trying to message the outside,” she says, not giving Kaede the chance to reply as she grabs her hand and begins searching for a staircase, “I’ll explain there.”

Miu checks behind her. The basement is long gone. 


	8. each breath you take is a brand new beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> himiko reunites with a friend and begins forming a relationship with an enemy

Korekiyo was still writing.

It had been quite a while now. Himiko would have expected Korekiyo to lose complete interest in the events transpiring around him, to run out of things to write about. The pair was still in the vents, the noise outside quietened down, the group chat dying out and silencing completely. There was nothing to write about. Everything interesting has already happened.

His scribbling was like knives to Himiko’s ears. After everything settled down, after she reached a hollow fear that completely stilled her, she found his notetaking increasingly more irritating. She wanted to ask what he was documenting, but found no words emerging. Was it a nervous habit of his? Was he even writing? Maybe he was just scribbling absolute nonsense to calm down.

Eventually curiosity overcomes her. Without asking verbally or making any audible noise, Himiko peers over at his journal, snatching a peek at what he was writing. Korekiyo doesn’t avert the book, allowing her to view it as he continues to scribble mindlessly. Now that Himiko can see the pages, it was clear why he wasn’t fussed about the redhead staring at his documentation. The language he was writing in was not Japanese. In fact, Himiko doubted it was even a _language._ It looked more like organized dashes, like he had scrambled the lines from the lettering and spread them across the page.

She must have involuntarily hummed out of confusion, because Korekiyo begins talking again.

“It’s a simple substitution code,” he answers without any question asked, “Each symbol represents a different letter.”

Himiko’s nose twitches, “...I don’t get why you need to be all secretive…”

Korekiyo’s yellow eyes meet her own. They’re blank, rather cold and unfeeling.

“...My apologies,” he starts after a solid beat of staring, “The next time you wish to peek at my personal writing, I will simply switch over to Japanese for your convenience.”

“Thank you,” Himiko returns, unaware there was sarcasm in his statement. She slumps back against the vent walls, now engaged in a conversation, “Is this… If you’re only writing observations, then I don’t get why you need to… make a _code_ , and everything…”

It was probably her own confusion that annoyed her. She never liked being behind on things, and her rather slow analytical abilities became much more apparent while in the presence of her more quick-witted friends. Like Kokichi or Kaito or Maki. Or Shuichi. _Especially_ Shuichi. That man once went off on a tangent about the minor inaccuracies in a mystery show he watched and accidentally revealed the identities of the next _three_ culprits without even knowing it. Himiko, in comparison, was below average in every sense.

“Well... I find that when I write in a language many understand, people tend to fall under the false pretense that they are allowed to read my personal thoughts. That led me to use a substitution code,” Korekiyo answers without looking at Himiko. 

Who was reading Korekiyo’s stuff? As far as Himiko knew, Korekiyo didn’t have a roommate, or anybody who lived with him. Was he talking about the nurses? Back when they were in the hospital? Himiko could remember the nurses being incredibly nosy, always lurking in rooms or eavesdropping on conversations in case any of the killing game participants were thinking about hurting themselves. She could understand a few nurses snatching Korekiyo’s private journal just to make sure his personal thoughts weren’t too dark for comfort.

“And besides, it’s not… entirely observational,” Korekiyo continues.

“Then what are you even writing about?” Himiko asks, “We’ve been in these vents for so long…”

His eyes trail back down to his journal, skimming through its pages, “Predictions.”

“Of what?” Himiko waits for an answer, but Korekiyo takes too long to provide one. Already majorly suspicious, the lack of the rebuttal seeps unpleasantly in her stomach, “Predictions of what?”

 _Of who’s going to die?_ The phrase strikes Himiko abruptly, but doesn’t escape her lips. It was rather awful, wasn’t it? Himiko’s perception of Korekiyo was that warped and morbid that the first thought that came to mind was death. 

Perhaps the former anthropologist noticed Himiko’s sudden edge. Perhaps he realized what Himiko was implying. His eyes narrow immediately.

“Predicting the reactions of certain personality types. I’ve been taking psychology courses, and simply thought it would be interesting to document,” he replies rather sharply, voice colder, “Why, is there a problem?”

“Well…”

Yeah, there was a bit of a problem with that. A gun goes off in the middle of a crowded ballroom and his first instinct is to write a psychology report?

“Well?” Korekiyo echoes.

“I-I dunno… that’s just a little--” she shrugs awkwardly, slightly guilty and incredibly tense, “Considering the circlestances... It’s kinda weird...”

“Circumstances?” he corrects.

Himiko’s eyebrows furrow, “I guess.”

A beat passes where the pair stare at each other in silence. Korekiyo’s expression is practically unreadable, a vacancy behind his eyes that Himiko couldn’t even try to decipher. And also the mask that covered half of his face. 

He emits a sharp sigh, through his nose, closing the journal and setting it stiffly next to him. It’s a conversation-ender. The majority of their time in the vents have been spent in complete, mind-numbing silence. Himiko was starting to miss the frequent buzzing of her phone. It was a constant variable in such a tense, closed environment. Now that the white noise was gone, now that the scribbling had subsided and the only noise was their breathing, Himiko was growing more and more claustrophobic by the second. Hasn’t everything settled down by now? Maybe she should run. Or call somebody. But she never liked making phone calls so why would she try to do it now?

She folds her arms. She crosses her legs. She kicks out her limbs and huffs exasperatedly. What should she do with her arms? Why was she becoming so restless? Was she nervous? Exhausted? Anxious? There’s an emotion behind it all that she just couldn’t understand, couldn’t label. A heated feeling that creeped through her skin and made her numb. Her face had dropped almost permanently into a straight line, her expression hardened. Korekiyo basically follows suit, yellow eyes pointedly staring out in front of him. It was almost like he wasn’t breathing at all. Like Himiko was sitting in a vent with a mannequin. 

“Nnngh. This is boring….” she says out loud, mainly just to break the silence. Korekiyo doesn’t reply. It makes things even more awkward. 

Himiko’s phone rings.

She practically leaps into the air. Considering the low roof, it was incredibly lucky she didn’t straight up give herself a concussion. Korekiyo was slightly less fortunate, with his tall stature already reaching the ceiling. He reacted to the sudden noise as if he had been shot, flinching defensively and slamming his elbows and head against the vent walls.

Himiko raises an eyebrow at the rather abrupt reaction, taking a brief moment to steady her heart beat before quickly answering the phone, not paying attention to the caller ID.

“Yeah?” she answers, rubbing at her eyes. 

“Mimi?”

It’s Himiko’s turn to hit the ceiling. Relief slams against her like a wave, so suddenly and without warning that she very nearly drops her cell phone.

“Tenko!?” she yells into the receiver, scrambling to collect her personal items in anticipation of leaving the vents, “Wh-Where are you!? Who’s with you, are you hurt!? Where did you go!?”

“Oh, uh-- I’m okay! I’m okay, everything’s fine!!” she speaks rapidly, voice high and clipped, “I’m here with, uh, Shuichi and-- Shuichi and Kokichi. We’re down at the front entrance.”

“Why didn’t you call!?” Himiko demands without any ill-intent, “I-I was worried sick!!”

“I’m so sorry!! My, uh, phone died!! Yeah!! I’m calling from Shuichi’s phone!!”

She’s fine. She’s _okay._ Himiko’s smile is stretching across her cheeks, her lips wobbling in pure relief. Korekiyo had been right. Tenko was okay, no other gun had been fired. Worrying about her safety was now knocked off of her list of problems. It had now been swamped under the initial terror of what could possibly be happening, of what this situation could possibly mean.

Because now that Tenko was okay, Himiko was starting to believe that the gunshot wasn’t real, afterall. 

“Hey, Himi,” Shuichi says distantly, in the background of the phone call. There are other people around him, a group of participants who mumble seriously with each other, “Yeah, we found her at the revolving doors at the front. We kinda stayed here for a bit, we’re helping Kazuichi with the front doors.”

Himiko doesn’t know who ‘Kazuichi’ is. Wasn’t that the dude Kaito could impersonate really well? The Ultimate Mechanic, or something? If the Ultimate Mechanic was working on opening the front doors, then surely freedom wasn’t that far away?

“Himi!!!” Kokichi greets, voice suddenly much louder. He is definitely shoving the entire receiver into his mouth to communicate with the redhead, “My love! My one and only! My honeydrop! My hot tamale!”

Himiko exhales through her nose in laughter, before quickly returning, “Guys? What are you doing there? I thought you were with the others…”

“Well, _obviously_ we left. Use your context clues, Himiko!” Kokichi swats, “Everybody was being all awkward and lame.”

Shuichi chuckles, stepping closer to the phone to be heard more clearly, “Uh, yeah, we thought it would be better to look for Tenko before people started arguing again... But things have been calming down… Kinda. A lot more people have been roaming around the hotel freely.” 

“Didn’t you say you were at the front entrance? What-- What’s happening there??”

“A total massacre!! Blood everywhere!!” Kokichi gasps dramatically, “Shuichi is cutting off Tenko’s head with a chainsaw--”

“Get outta here!!” Tenko snaps playfully. Judging by the gust of wind that follows quickly after, it was clear she had shoved the teen away from the phone, “Mimi, where are you--”

At the same time she asked questions, Himiko overlapped with a repeated, “Where were you?”

“U-Uh-- I was in the bathroom!! I got… uh, lost,” Tenko stammers, before hastily diverting the subject, “Can you come to me? Who are you with?”

“I’m still in the vents with--”

Himiko sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes trailing over to meet Korekiyo. He was listening to the conversation intently, the silence of the vents allowing him to hear both ends of the discussion. Noticing the redhead was turning towards him, he quickly averts his eyes, peering out of the grate as if he was never listening. Himiko’s mouth hangs open, the answer obvious and chilly on her lips, but it takes another solid beat before she replies honestly.

“Yeah, uh-- Korekiyo.”

Silence.

“...Am I on speaker?” Tenko asks in almost a whisper, voice suddenly cold.

“No.”

Tenko releases a wavering exhale, “Are you okay? Has he pulled anything?”

“No. No, I’m--” she peers over. Korekiyo was definitely listening. No matter how much Tenko lowered her volume (which, considering her normal speaking voice was basically yelling, wasn’t much) Korekiyo would still be able to hear. First Himiko implies he was predicting people’s deaths, and now Tenko was asking if he hurt her, “...Fine.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Tenko’s voice is suddenly wavering, much less confident, “...Can you come here?”

She doesn’t want to go to where Himiko is. She doesn’t want to see him. She doesn’t want to see Korekiyo.

“Absolutely,” Himiko replies, crawling towards the vent’s exit. This time, Korekiyo allows her to pass, flattening himself against the walls as Himiko awkwardly slinks past, “Front entrance, right?”

“Wait, uh-- Himiko… It might be dangerous for you to go alone,” Shuichi suggests slowly. The redhead could hear Tenko scowl in the background, “Um… If you want, I’m sure Kokichi could go pick you up, or something…”

“Ew! No, thanks,” Kokichi’s voice has faded, as if he was backing away from the conversation, “Himi gives me the heebie jeebies! I’m not picking up both of them.”

“Not _both_ of them,” Tenko hisses, “Just Himiko!!”

“Um… I don’t know where I am…” Himiko admits, “...I kinda blacked out back there.”

“...Let me guess, Korekiyo knows where you are?” Shuichi asks.

She sneaks another meek look over at the former anthropologist before she answers, “Yup.”

He sighs, muttering something away from the phone. Tenko whispers harshly back to his indiscernible comment, a snarky remark of, “Absolutely not!!” before Shuichi continues to mumble. After a long side conversation in which Himiko sat through awkwardly, her lips pursed and toes tapping against the vents, Tenko snarls a nasty, “ _Fine!”_ which signaled the discussion over.

“Himiko, could you please ask Korekiyo to walk you there?” Shuichi asks politely.

“It would be no problem,” Korekiyo instantly replies, tone dripping with something bitter, revealing that he _had_ been listening the entire time.

“Oh--” Shuichi stops himself, realizing he was being heard by both members of the pair in the vent, “Oh, uh, yeah… Thanks.”

“Front entrance!! I’ll be waiting for you, Mimi!!” Tenko says lovingly, before ending the phone call with a cold, “Korekiyo, make it fast.”

-=+=-

At this point, you should be expecting awkward silence between Korekiyo and Himiko.

They strolled through the hotel, areas that Himiko had been introduced to briefly by Makoto but completely forgot about afterwards. The hallways were beginning to become less empty, with participants floating around to different areas, their smiles returning as if nothing had happened at all. The hotel was once again becoming unnerving, but now for an entirely different reason. It felt horridly out of character for Danganronpa, for their participants to move past threat so freely, especially after the killing games they had just emerged from. It had clearly affected the 53rd Season, with their cast being the most recent to emerge from the game, and even then the effects were beginning to wear off. 

It scared Himiko when she noticed that she was beginning to grow desensitized, too. She was intentionally numbing herself. It wasn’t this giddy, naive ignorance that she could see the other seasons doing. It was purposeful desensitization. Shutting her emotions down.

Korekiyo was staring directly forward, his journal shoved into his jacket pocket, the book having been untouched for the entirety. Himiko would have expected him to take it out and begin writing already.

She realized a little later that perhaps her implied criticism struck a chord with him. Maybe he took her judgement to heart. It made her feel quite guilty, or at least she _thinks_ it did. Shaming someone for their special interests just felt like a low blow, especially from _her,_ a character who constantly fussed about people making fun of (or in other words, shaming) her special interest. He hadn’t done anything to hurt her, at least not outside of the simulator, and had even extended his compassion to drag her out of the ballroom. He was even extending it _further_ by walking her to the front entrance. All she had returned was a long period of awkward silence, some bitter remarks about his note-taking being creepy, and harsh glances in his direction.

The only thing she can do now is move forward. The only thing she can do is… move things forward.

“Thank you for walking me, I guess,” she mumbles before she’s even aware of what she’s saying. The sentiment was dulled by the added ‘I guess’, but she didn’t have the strength to repeat the phrase without it.

Acknowledging that it was the best he was going to get, Korekiyo replies with a curt nod.

Himiko notices the lack of reply and continues the conversation with a curious, “...Uh, hey, that psychology stuff sounded… interesting.”

Korekiyo looks over at the smaller girl. Wow, was Himiko short. The second shortest person in her class was paired with the second tallest person in the class, and it showed. She was craning her neck just to look up at him.

“...I never took you for somebody who was interested in psychology,” Korekiyo hums. He was definitely catching on that Himiko was only asking out of pity, “I don’t mean any offense by that, but--”

“Nah, it’s not--” she interrupts him accidentally, then pauses to allow him to finish. Korekiyo does the same, and a beat of silence passes before Himiko resumes the conversation with a lazy shrug, “I dunno. It’s really interesting, and all, but I just don’t understand a lot of it. Y’know?” 

“What classes have you been taking?” Korekiyo diverts the subject.

She shrugs again, “Mm. I dunno… Japanese, Media, Beginner’s Math…. I wanted to take History but it’s all Canadian, so…” 

“Ah. I forgot you live in Canada, now. Do they not offer World History at your school?”

“I had to take a regular History class before they let me into that one… But I don’t think it’d matter, anyways, cuz I’m taking Business Management, instead,” she flashes a cocky smirk, “...And I’m _good_ at Business Management.”

Korekiyo hums, nodding, “Intriguing. Of course, the wonderful thing about history is you are fully capable of doing the research yourself. Was there a particular event you were curious about?”

Himiko’s nose scrunches, “Why, are you taking History?”

“I’m only taking three classes. History is, unfortunately, not one of them,” he corrects, “Most of my classes had to be sacrificed to make time for rehabilitation.”

Himiko nods solemnly. A few of her classmates deal with the same situation, having been recommended by their therapist to take a few courses off as it appeared detrimental to their health and schedule. She knows that Maki was bummed about having to miss two of her own classes; Her false memories lacked any proper schooling, so now that she was in the real world she wanted to experience everything. Kokichi was a lot less bummed about his two classes being removed from his schedule, in fact if it wasn’t for his college-level math class he would have probably dropped out by now. 

With all of his killing-game-induced trauma, Himiko would have expected Korekiyo to have dropped out, too. A few classmates who weren’t recovering as quickly were offered to skip a year of school and take it later, and Korekiyo should have been the first person asked. His pursuit of knowledge seemed to be very strong, however, strong enough to pursue school despite everything that had happened. Himiko didn’t have to agree with his decision to respect it.

“...Business Management? I can’t remember you ever being interested in business,” Korekiyo continues. Now that they’ve gotten the ball rolling, conversation seemed to be much easier. 

“Nah, I wasn’t. But I wasn’t sure what classes to take--” she remembers that day, when she chose her classes. She had a mini breakdown, staring at the timetable. She didn’t have a passion to strive towards, not since her Ultimate talent had been proven false, “--So Tenko said I should give something totally new a try… And I guess it was…. Business Management?”

The corners of Korekiyo’s eyes crinkle in amusement as he emits a soft laugh from behind his teeth, “I suppose that does fall under the category of ‘totally new’, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. But now it’s my favorite subject,” she says, “Mainly because it doesn’t remind me of the--”

She cuts out, forcing her lips to close in a thin line. 

At this point, Himiko is keeping this conversation alive purely to prove to herself that she is capable of holding and maintaining a running dialogue. Tenko says that if she runs out of things to talk about, then talk about current events.

“...What are your thoughts about what’s happening? Righ’ now?” Himiko mumbles, words lacing together and forming one long, fluid sound.

Korekiyo looked pretty surprised that she was keeping the conversation going, as well. This was probably the longest either of them had talked to each other, both inside and outside of the killing game. 

“Worrisome, at least,” he answers, slowly, “...I’m aware of the possibility that this is all simply a hoax, but I can’t help but be slightly pessimistic about the situation at hand. I will keep my grievances to myself, however. I don’t believe causing alarm is the best way to handle this,” there’s a beat of silence, before he suddenly remembers to ask, “And you?”

She shrugs for the hundredth time that conversation, “...Eh. I hope it’s not real. I haven’t seen anything, soooooo…..”

“Hm. Interesting.” 

The discussion ends, and this time Himiko lets it fade.

Well, that conversation wasn’t _entirely_ awkward… even if it was short. Himiko nearly forgot that he tried to kill her girlfriend, for a second there. It felt weird afterwards. She was talking so _casually_ with him. She was discussing mundane things such as school with her best friend’s killer. Weird. Weird, weird, weird.

But, in some way or another, he seemed a bit more… grounded? Is that the word? Easier to talk to? She shouldn’t be all that surprised about personality changes from inside the killing game to outside, but Himiko still found the approachability rather off putting.

Korekiyo leads Himiko into the reception hall. Similar to how it was when she entered, the room was scattered with various people, however the majority of them were crowded around the glass doors up front. They were too huddled around the action for Himiko to fully discern just what was happening, but she could recognize a few people. Chihiro was there, the Ultimate Programmer that Miu made friends with, standing cautiously next to a man attempting to crowbar a control panel open. Shuichi was talking nervously to a woman with platinum blonde hair and a green floral dress. Kokichi was bouncing around, squeezing through people’s legs to gather all of the information possible. And--

“Tenko!” Himiko calls out. 

The girl in question whips around. As soon as she locks eyes with the former mage, her signature smile immediately spreads wide, occupying half of her face. Himiko breaks into a full on sprint, tackling the taller girl as Tenko hugs her tightly to her chest.

“I was so _worried!”_ Himiko sighs into Tenko’s shoulder, voice high with relief and giddiness. After a long, silent, elated hug, Himiko detached herself from Tenko’s shoulder, still being held in her arms, “Don’t do that again!! I mean it!!”

“Sorry!! Sorry. I won’t, I won’t,” Tenko replies, pulling her girlfriend in for a hug once more, “I promise.”

Another moment passed of them simply hugging each other, steadying their heartbeats and embracing the wave of relief of their significant other being safe and out of harm’s way. Kokichi notices the lovers in the middle of the reception and quickly makes himself known.

“Himi, you’re not dead!!” he celebrates, moving forward to break the pair up. He smiles at the redhead and gives her a simple hug, before quickly breaking it off with a phony frown, “Boo. You’re so boring.”

Tenko flicks him in the forehead.

“How was the walk??” she asks quickly, checking the redhead over in case any part of her was injured, “Are you alright? Is everything okay, is every--”

At one point in the sentence, her eyes trail over to the reception’s exit, towards the massive arch that led into the hallway. Hovering awkwardly under that arch was Korekiyo, hands plaited tensely behind his back as he rocked back and forth between the balls of his feet and his heel. Tenko locks eyes with him and glares harshly, mouth curling into an unpleasant frown, hands resting protectively on Himiko’s shoulders as she freezes completely. Even Kokichi silences, grin still wide on his face but stature frozen entirely.

Noticing that Korekiyo was being cued to leave, Himiko, perhaps out of habit, waves him goodbye.

At first the boy’s eyes widened, most likely not expecting any form of a goodbye, even if it was tiny and practically insignificant. This tiny display of shock is quickly diminished, however. Korekiyo leaves with a tiny gesture of goodbye and a polite nod in her direction.

Tenko snarls under her breath, shoulders relaxing and her nasty frown beginning to leave her face. There’s something distant in her eyes. A nasty memory that passes her briefly. 

Shuichi emerges from his side conversation and also offers the redhead a warm hug, expressing his own relief over her safety. His smile twitches slightly, clearly distressed and rather uncalm, his welcoming facade crumbling under the circumstances. Shuichi seems to have been communicating with the other classes, receiving much more information from them than anybody else in his class was. Maybe it was a perk of being a protagonist. More responsibility. More credibility. 

Himiko doesn’t exactly notice his underlying stress, but still asks, “What’s happening?”

“We’re gonna blow up the door!!” Kokichi shouts excitedly in reply.

Shuichi smirks in laughter, “Almost. Uh, Kazuichi is taking a blowtorch to the glass.”

“Woah,” Himiko exclaims in monotone, “...But couldn’t he just…. Y’know… Open it?”

“Well-- If you mean just walking through the doors normally, then, uh, no,” the former detective scratches behind his head awkwardly, passing glances back at the crowd behind them, “The locks seem pretty… locked. The glass also seems pretty unbreakable. Tenko tried kicking it a few times, but it didn’t budge,” Tenko smiles proudly anyways, as if she hadn’t failed her task entirely, “I think Chihiro is trying to do something about them?”

The group turned towards the Ultimate Programmer, who had now managed to pry the control panel open. He squints at it, flicks a button, shuts the lights in the reception off and on, and then begins talking with a few people around him. 

Makoto enters the reception area not too far after that, followed by a few other Future Foundation members, including Aoi and Sakura. He steps into the room, pausing as he glances over the crowd of people near the doors, all of them restless and curious beyond words on what was happening. Makoto’s face was unreadable, lips pressed into a thin line, almost as if he was steadying himself before entering the situation. 

After a long beat of pause and a heavy exhale, Makoto walks forward with a much more optimistic look on his face. He spots Himiko’s group and steadily glides towards them, clearly concerned. Tenko very visibly shrinks, shifting uncomfortably. Almost.. guiltily, for some reason.

“Everything okay over here?” Makoto asks, supportively patting Shuichi on the shoulder. 

The group plaster smiles on their faces and throw out positive answers, as if they hadn’t been freaking out and panicking just moments prior, as if they hadn’t been calling and texting each other frantically to know where everybody was. She could hesitantly admit that things were calming down slightly, now that she knew where everybody was, now that she knew where _Tenko_ was. But it still sucked. She wouldn’t label it “okay”. 

Makoto smiles, “Okay, I’m really glad you guys are doing alright. I feel like I need to…” he grits his teeth sincerely, tone dropping, “...Apologize. For all of this, it’s--”

The group once more begin speaking at once, sans Tenko, every one of them mumbling that he had no need to apologize, that this wasn’t his fault, that he didn’t need to take responsibility for this. They felt bad for him. A lot of people viewed Makoto as the face of Danganronpa. There’s no wonder why he felt as if he had to be the face of this catastrophe, as well.

“Oh, guys. Thank you, really. We’re gonna work hard so everybody can get out as soon as possible, okay? Don’t worry about it!” Makoto continues. Tenko’s eyes flicker up towards him, but her gaze still remains on the floor.

“You’re totally right, Mr. Naegi! I’m not worried at all!” Kokichi says. 

Makoto hasn’t met the former supreme leader yet, so he instantly mistakes his lie as sincerity, “Amazing! Let’s do our best, yeah?”

With one last pat on Shuichi’s back, the Ultimate Hope walks over to the next group, with pointed questions of concern.

Do her best. Himiko looks at her previous decisions, at her choice to remain in the vents, at her not-so-carefully worded conversations with Korekiyo, and realizes pretty quickly that it wasn’t her best. It wasn’t her best at all. But now that things were beginning to become clearer, now that Tenko and her friends were with her, Himiko was being given the chance to reach her best. To do something useful, perhaps for the first time since the killing game ended.

It wasn’t “her best”, but she will be better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can somebody who is taking or has taken a business management class tell me what exactly that is bc.............. i do Not Know
> 
> and thank you for reading!!! :D stay safe <333


	9. why i feel this way, i don't know, maybe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> who let these people play with fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> direct me to the man that gave kazuichi a blowtorch

One advantage to being small: Himiko is able to squirm her way to the front of the crowd very easily.

A man with fluorescent pink hair was hunched over a steel gas tank, thick black gloves covering his hands and a welding mask over his face. The blowtorch he was planning to use on the glass sat dumbly on the floor next to him. This must be Kazuichi Souda. Even with his face covered by the mask, his neon pink hair was a sure-tell sign. That, as well as the nametag on his blue shirt that was very clearly labeled “Kazuichi Souda, Ultimate Mechanic”. 

Most of the people around him, those who were huddling around the gas tank with jittery anticipation and mumbled remarks, were also from his season. A man was leaning against the locked doors with his arms folded stiffly across his chest, his dark hair holding one individual white streak that set him apart from the crowd of people he was clearly uncomfortable with. A girl with tan skin and messy brown hair tossed into a ponytail was sitting next to the gas tank, tapping rhythms into its side with her fingers. 

Those who weren’t from Kazuichi’s season were limited; An Ultimate Supervisor from Season 12 who was, you guessed it, supervising, an Ultimate Event Coordinator from Season 47 who was making sure nothing went too wrong, and a few with even more unrelated talents such as an Ultimate Cartoonist and an Ultimate Street Dancer from Season 15 who just wanted to see what was happening. Many were being advised to stop crowding the Ultimate Mechanic as he fiddled with the gas tank. 

Tenko stood supportively behind her girlfriend, after having shoved a few people just to get to the front. The pair haven’t let go of each other since reuniting, with Himiko either hugging her waist or Tenko wrapping her arms around the redhead’s shoulders. Kokichi showed up in the front of the crowd for a few moments, then left, then showed up again to see if anything had changed. Tenko grabs him by the collar before he darts away again, clearly distracted by his frequent change in location. Shuichi was trying to do the same as Kokichi, but, noticing that Tenko reprimanded the other boy for it, quickly planted his feet where he was.

He had been talking with the Ultimate Princess (is that even a talent you could have? Don’t get Himiko wrong, the lady is probably a lovely person and her title sounds awesome, but being a princess wasn’t necessarily a talent), who was now hovering close to the glass, peering intently outside. She was a relatively tall lady, with platinum blonde hair up to her shoulders and almost porcelain-like skin.

“It is so dreary outside,” she hums to herself, hands held neatly behind her back, “So empty, as well. I would have expected people to arrive, by now.”

“Nah. This hotel is in the middle a’ nowhere,” the lady with a ponytail replies, pinky finger scratching inside of her ear. Her nametag was horribly ripped, but Himiko could still visibly read the name ‘Akane Owari’ off of it, “Everybody who’s supposed to be in here is stuck inside.”

“Not for long,” Kazuichi says, voice almost completely muffled by his welding mask, “The glass has got nothing on this bad boy!” he finishes his muddled statement with two pats to the gas tank.

“...You sure you know what you’re doing with that thing?” Akane asks, “You haven’t touched a machine in _years,_ dude.”

“W-Well, that shouldn’t matter! I still know how it _works,”_ as he says that, he flips the blowtorch in his hands, pulling his mask back to get a closer look at it. He dramatically thumbs at a random nozzle, “...This one turns it on, right?”

Immediately, everyone from his class moves forward with wide eyes, ready to grab the flammable weapon from his hands. Kazuichi pulls back with a smile, revealing his unnaturally sharp teeth.

“Kidding! Kidding,” he quickly waves, throwing his mask back over his face, “Besides, who _else_ is gonna do it?” he searches through the crowd, looking for somebody to make a joke with. Himiko, the only one of her group paying attention considering Tenko and Kokichi were once again bickering behind her, was immediately spotted, “Here, kid. Take this blowtorch!!”

“Okay,” Himiko agrees, not picking up the sarcasm. She was a magician, and she’s worked with fire before. It wasn’t exactly a huge deal. 

Kazuichi blinks, expecting a different answer, but then continues to gesture the blowtorch in her direction with a wide and almost proud grin. Akane’s smile is even wider as she applauds the redhead, whooping in a manner not appropriate for the situation as Himiko grabs the blowtorch.

Tenko must have noticed her holding the tool and quickly yips, rushing back over to her side.

“U-Uh, Himiko!! That!! Is a blowtorch!!” she identifies rather obviously, “That is dangerous!! Here, let me take it--”

“It’s all good,” Akane dismisses, “We’re only lightening the mood.”

Tenko stiffens almost instantly, nervous about disrespecting those who were older than her, _especially_ a lady with muscles for days, but manages to retort with, “...I-I don’t think this is a situation we should be taking lightly…”

Akane squints, lips curling slightly downwards, but otherwise she let’s the comment slide, “...‘Sides, she seems to know what she’s doing.”

“Yes, and it is quite informing of her power,” the man with the white streak, Gundham Tanaka, says. It’s the first time he’s spoken, probably because the crowd of people had begun to disperse, “She clearly holds an affinity to fire magic. Not bad for an--” he squints at her nametag. Tenko misinterprets where his gaze lands on Himiko and very nearly steadies herself for a solid kick to his groin, “...Ultimate Magician!”

Himiko smirks bitterly at his slight amusement at her prewritten talent, lazily throwing her hands in the air, “Prepare to be amazed. Fall to your knees.”

“Aw, cool, a magician!? Guess what number I’m thinking of,” Kazuichi marvels, squinting his eyes closed as he thinks of a number.

“Um… Kazuichi? Perhaps we should remain focused,” Sonia suggests gently.

Kazuichi immediately flips his mask back over his face, grabs the blowtorch from Himiko with a remark so muffled the redhead couldn’t understand it, and turns a nozzle on the gas tank. The flame starts and is pressed against the glass so hastily that the blowtorch taps against the doors. Himiko raises a suspicious eyebrow. The Ultimate Princess obviously held a lot of influence. The redhead doesn’t blame him, if Sonia told her to do anything she would probably blindly oblige also. 

The small group watches pointedly as the glass Kazuichi aims at begins to slowly grow a bright orange, a color so hypnotizing that Himiko wants to touch it, for some odd reason. The group stays in silence for a moment, watching the flame continue and burn even brighter. Currently, the glass wasn’t melting away. Just a bit more time, Himiko reckons.

Kokichi stares at the glass, his face slowly moving closer to the blowtorch, squinting furiously at the flame. After a few seconds of intense staring, Kokichi snaps back to his original position, his signature grin wiped across his face.

“Boring!” he declares, “I’m outta here. Call me when something fun happens.”

“Where are you headed?” Shuichi questions.

Kokichi pouts, crossing his arms, “Why do I have to tell you that I’m going to the roof? I like to keep my own secrets!” he pretends to gasp at his intentionally misspoken words, “Aw! I gave it away… Don’t follow me, Shumai!!”

He begins skipping away. Shuichi stays put. About five steps away from the group, Kokichi flips himself back around with an exasperated frown.

“Well? Are you coming, or not?” he groans. 

Shuichi chuckles, asks Tenko to give him an update on this situation once something emerges from it, waves a hasty goodbye, and shuffles to catch up to him. Gundham, perhaps acknowledging that this might take a while, moves to the side and takes Sonia with him.

It makes Himiko slightly suspicious, knowing that two of the smartest people in her class have already given up on this blowtorch situation. She was staying put, so if the door burns open she would be able to run outside to safety. To sprint out of the hotel and down the road, until she finds the nearest town. She hadn’t even thought about the possibility of it not opening. She had assumed all glass was meltable with enough heat.

She also hadn’t thought about the text message. Wasn’t there a rule about leaving the Cypress area? These doors felt too easy, too open and too obvious. Weren’t there supposed to be armed guards? Would they be waiting outside with guns, waiting for people to attempt leaving? But if there really _were_ armed guards, then why weren’t they standing right at the exit? Why were they letting Kazuichi attack their doors with a blowtorch? It all felt too easy.

Back when she was a magician, or _believed_ she was a magician, distraction was a huge part of her act. She spent perhaps an entire day back in the Danganronpa hospital just sitting on her bed, staring at the wall, picking apart her magic shows and proving to herself that it wasn’t, in fact, real magic, and that it was only a series of carefully planned sleight of hand tricks. Those painful hours of analyzing her existence led her to one relevant fact: This door was a distraction. When Himiko wanted the audience to look away from the actual trick, she would cause some distraction to draw their attention. Perhaps this door was only a cover for something more important. A distraction from the _real_ trick, the _real_ exit.

Kazuichi hasn’t moved the blowtorch, but Himiko can’t see the flames cutting through the glass.

Akane had been staring at Tenko and Himiko ever since the former aikido master made her nervous comment. Himiko knows she’s about to ask more questions, ask more questions about her talent and the killing game they just emerged from. The redhead intentionally squirms away so she’s standing behind Tenko.

The Ultimate Gymnast raises a pointed finger slowly, lips curling with a beginning of a sentence. It takes another second before she finds the right word.

“....Maki,” she guesses, finger aiming at Tenko.

Tenko shakes her head, “Tenko Chabashira.”

Akane slaps her own knee in disappointment, “Close enough! Both of you are survivors, right? And-- Uh--” she points at Himiko, “Her, as well?”

The girlfriends share a glance. It was always a sore subject, their status in the killing game, especially considering Tenko wasn’t _supposed_ to survive. 

“Yeah,” Himiko answers. Tenko raises her shoulders in a meek attempt at an answer. 

“Same with Kazuichi and I,” she weakly slaps the Ultimate Mechanic in the shoulder and he very nearly throws the blowtorch in the air, “How’s the Survivor’s Fund treatin’ ya?”

Tenko frowns, “Oh, uh... I was denied the Survivor’s Fund. I wasn’t supposed to live, so they just kinda… skipped over me.”

“Ah... that sucks. Sorry,” Akane says sympathetically, “To be honest, I didn’t really watch all of your season.”

She said that last phrase cautiously, as if it was an insult. Himiko honestly took it as a compliment. Thank you, for not watching her embarrass herself live through a number of situations with varying levels of severity. Thank you, Akane, for turning the TV off before you watched Himiko break down in a nervous panic or crumble into a heap of wet sobs and snot. She was made to watch her season back at the hospital, but found herself running out of the room every time something even remotely embarrassing happened to her. She gritted through the deaths out of spite, out of some horrid belief that reliving meant relieving, but couldn’t sit through watching herself cry. It just felt overwhelmingly embarrassing. 

Himiko, apologetically, can not return this compliment. She had watched Akane’s season, as well as Makoto’s. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, and she deeply regretted it afterwards, but she watched them. The Ultimate Gymnast was a survivor of her own season, a killing game that took place in a virtual world inside a virtual world, but she was not a survivor that Himiko necessarily knew much about. 

“That’s… probably a good thing,” Himiko voices out loud, nose twitching, “I don’t think our season is very… liked. Especially the ending.”

“ _Especially_ the ending,” Tenko echoes, nodding her head.

“I heard about it. The ‘Ultimate Real Fiction’ reveal, right? That couldn’t have been pretty,” Akane snorts sarcastically. Kazuichi shakes his head, still focused intently on the flame in front of him. The glass has not melted.

The fiction reveal _wasn’t_ pretty. The Danganronpa Team gave Himiko and her class an existential crisis on live television, in front of an audience of millions of people. She wakes up every morning either questioning her entire existence, hating the people who made her so childish and boring, or suffering immensely from trauma-ridden flashbacks. So, yeah. Not pretty. And she has Danganronpa to thank.

She has Danganronpa to thank for a lot of her troubles. Maybe she should send them a gift basket.

“Not too sure how they’re going to do another season after that, honestly. You might have ended Danganronpa for good,” Akane jokes. Both Himiko and Tenko brighten at that idea, but she seemed to be kidding, “Yo, Kaz, you think they’re gonna pull a Season 5? Survivors only killing game?”

Kazuichi pulls back his mask rather unsafely, the blowtorch still turned on as his expression sours, “Don’t remind me…”

“Ey, you survived that one!” she chortles with another weak slap to his shoulder, “ _And_ Season 33, if I may add.”

“I’m unkillable,” Kazuichi jokes in monotone, focus clearly elsewhere as he pushes the blowtorch closer to the glass.

“...How many seasons have you _been_ in?” Himiko asks warily.

The Ultimate Gymnast leans back on her elbows, expression nonchalant for a rather grim subject, “Dunno. Pro’bly four?”

Himiko grits her teeth, “I would have thought… one was enough….”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. Danganronpa’s probably over for you guys. But hey, y’know what they say,” Akane says, mainly to herself, “Danganronpa never dies.” 

Both Tenko and Himiko tense at her poorly timed joke, lips pursing into thin lines. They were the only people left in front of the door. The rest of the crowd had dispersed to other locations, chatting around the control panel which seemed to be wielding more conclusive results. The blowtorch continues to buzz in the background. Kazuichi hasn’t moved his mask back over his face, too hypnotized by the red-orange light. 

“...Oh,” Himiko exhales.

“Season 2, right? That’s… cool!!” Tenko diverts after a long pause of nothing, “How is everybody from your season?”

“Well, it’s the first time I’ve seen most of ‘em in a while. Thought most of them were dead, to be honest. So I guess they’re better than expected!” Akane shrugs, scratching behind her head in thought, “How ‘bout you all, everyone okay? Adjusting alright?”

“Nope!!” Tenko answers immediately, before Himiko is able to lie, “But thank you for asking!!”

Himiko smiles slightly at her girlfriend’s rather blunt wording, but struggles herself with finding the proper words to describe their situation. She had a lot of questions for Akane, none of which were reaching her lips. She was a survivor too, so was Danganronpa treating her like they treated Himiko? Like they treated _Tenko?_ Every time Danganronpa mentions the former Ultimate Mage and Ultimate Aikido Master, it’s almost as if they struggle with speaking about them politely. Every email to the pair is passive aggressive and every interview is falsely cheerful and upbeat. Surely they can’t treat _everybody_ like that.

Another solid question: Does it get any better than this? Himiko looks at the other survivors, people like Akane and Kazuichi, and doesn’t notice too much pain or suffering. They all just seem… normal. Of course, she doesn’t know these people well enough to understand their true feelings or intentions, she only sees what is bluntly shown to her. Maybe they were hurting, also. Actually, now that she thinks about it, they probably had a lot more on their plate than Himiko did. Aren’t the majority of them… actual war criminals? Was that not a plot point that occurred during their season? Everything was confusing and way too much to think about.

“A lot of us hate each other and things are pretty awkward,” Tenko babbles without thought, jaw clenching as a certain anthropologist comes to mind, “And this situation isn’t helping. At all.”

“...Yeah, that’s fair. A few of us seriously hated each other a few years ago. Specifically Hiyoko with Mikan,” Akane was spitting out names as if Himiko knew any of them, “But you’ll adjust eventually! All ya need is good food, good exercise, and a 6”4 Ultimate Team Manager,” she very sharply sits up, clapping her hands together in sudden, abrupt thought, “Ooh! You know what I just remembered!? Nekomaru’s doin’ a booth a little later! Tell him I sent you and he’ll spar ya real good!”

Himiko doesn’t know who Nekomaru is. Who is that? And while the offer is nice, Himiko isn’t staying in this hotel long enough to sit through his… demonstration, or whatever event he was hosting. Also, considering how tiny she is, and how Akane mentioned Nekomaru being _6”4,_ Himiko has this awful feeling that he would crush her. Instantly.

Tenko perks up slightly at the mention of sparring, though. Sometimes her old passion for aikido just couldn’t help but involuntarily peek through, “Oh, awesome!!”

“Babe, I don’t think we’re staying for that long,” Himiko quickly disagrees, “We’re leaving, remember?”

“O-Oh, yeah. Right,” she quickly backtracks, eyes shifting towards the glass nervously, “Leaving.”

Akane exhales through her nose in a tiny sigh, glancing back at the blowtorch. It’s taking forever. The glass was charring, turning an ugly black color, but the flame doesn’t seem to be cutting through it. Kazuichi stops the blowtorch with a confused grunt, setting the tool down as he runs over the burnt spot with his gloved fingers. After noticing the glass wasn’t even close to melting, still solid and unmoving, he began to apply pressure to the burnt spot. It doesn’t budge. The glass was impenetrable. 

“...That’s not good,” he hums, sitting back.

Akane’s eyebrows furrow. She pushes herself up to her feet, squinting at the glass. Without warning, she kicks at it. Nothing happens. 

Himiko called it earlier. It was a distraction. There was no way they were going to make leaving _that_ easy.

Akane kicks it again, except this time it felt much more out of frustration than curiosity. 

Kazuichi turns to her with a grimace, “...I can keep trying, but I’m pretty sure it’s Invinci-Glass. Might need to find the Ultimate who invented it.”

“Any idea who that is?” Akane asks.

“Nope.”

“So this door is a bust,” the Ultimate Gymnast hisses, rolling her eyes at it, “Damn it! Shit.”

She begins ranting to Kazuichi, complaining about the doors being stupid and how she’ll have to relay this information to more people from her season, dropping names Himiko barely remembers. Kazuichi was talking over her, also complaining, and eventually it feels like both of them are holding completely different conversations at the same time. Tenko frowns at the glass, noticing that they weren’t going to get anywhere. Himiko leans back awkwardly, slowly beginning to shuffle away from the yelling gymnast and mechanic.

“Let’s try somewhere else,” she whispers.

-=+=-

“Well… I-It definitely controls the lights… But that’s kinda typical considering it’s… a control panel,” Chihiro answers a question that Tenko had posed, fingers hovering over a few switches. Somebody stands behind him, another man with fiery orange hair and piercings, unscrewing electrical panels with a wrench, “The electronic locks seem to be coming from another source, but… I’m sure we’ll be able to override them soon!”

Tenko nods stiffly at the two boys, hands folded tightly in front of her. Himiko was proud of her starting this rather civil conversation with two men she didn’t know; she would have expected at least one passive aggressive name call by now. The redhead had been too busy squinting at the control panel to act as a buffer for her girlfriend, but she seemed to be handling herself pretty alright. Usually that only happens when she’s met them before.

“That’s, uh… weird,” Tenko replies with her eyebrows furrowed, “...What do you mean by ‘another source’? Do you mean… from the outside?”

“It could mean that. But it’s probably from the inside… We’ll either find it ourselves or just interrupt the signal.” 

“...Cool,” Tenko nods, not understanding.

“Cool,” Himiko parrots, nodding and understanding even less.

Chihiro smiles warmly at the pair, the tiniest hint of dread in his eyes, “Did the doors not work?”

The pair shake their heads no. The Ultimate Programmer purses their lips in worry, but tries to mask it quickly by averting his head back to the control panel. The other man with orange hair manages to pry a steel panel off, revealing a large collection of wires. He flinches as the panel clatters onto the floor, hissing a quick curse word. His gaze rises back up towards the wires, and his expression instantly sours.

“...Welp. Doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere anytime soon,” he quips sardonically at it, sighing heavily as he begins to walk away, “Better start setting up my booth. All yours, Chihiro.”

“O-Oh, thanks, Leon,” the programmer stutters as a goodbye. Leon throws a wave over his shoulder, slumping past them and out of the reception hall, mumbling about the booth he needs to set up and his, quote on quote, “stupid talent”. 

Himiko didn’t really blame him for surrendering pretty quickly. There were a ton of people already working on finding an exit, and just one person giving up wasn’t going to cause much damage in the grand scheme of a thousand people. Himiko wasn’t ready to give up trying to exit and instead adapt yet, but out of everybody in her class she was probably the closest to doing so. A lot of her other classmates already know what it was like to crumble under the pressure of a time limit, knew what it’s like to snap under copious amounts of stress and would do anything to get away from that feeling. Himiko had only experienced it second-hand, had only watched it happen.

Maybe surrendering was a trait you develop over time when you’re signed under Danganronpa. Maybe you just learn to put up with this company’s crap. Himiko had a long way to go before her contract was terminated, so this trait was probably something she should consider developing, as well. 

Chihiro seems to have concluded the discussion. He was analyzing the wires, taking mental notes of their location as he tugged his ponytail tighter against his head. 

“Miu might be good at this,” Himiko mumbles to Tenko, “Maybe we should find her.”

“I think she might have gone somewhere,” the brunette replies, the pair beginning to walk away from the control panel considering they had nothing to contribute, “Shuichi said she was quite upset.”

 _That sounds like Miu,_ “Well, I hope she didn’t go too far.”

She wants to add a quiet “like you did”, but decides against it.

“Me too!!” Tenko agrees. 

They’ve started mindlessly walking without a set destination. The hallways were much more familiar to Himiko now. Participants were running through the halls with tools and equipment, with hammers and screwdrivers and power drills, all ready to dismantle and rebuild this hotel from the inside out. 

Tenko was fiddling repetitively with her fingers. Himiko wasn’t excellent at reading faces, but she’s recognized the nervous habits of her friends. Shuichi tugs at his sleeves. Kokichi grows unnecessarily loud. Tenko plays with her hands. There must be a reason she was nervous.

“Hey, um… Did Korekiyo say anything to you?” she begins quietly. 

_And there it was,_ “We just kinda… talked about school, I guess…”

“Oh. Okay,” Tenko nods, “Anything else?”

Himiko shrugs cautiously, “He was writing most of the time.”

The brunette turns to Himiko sharply, taking the new development and running with it, “Wh-What was he writing?”

At first Himiko was prepared to share everything with her, was ready to reveal Korekiyo’s psychology reports and the substitution code that only he knows how to decipher, but she quickly realizes how suspicious it sounded. The former aikido master was already incredibly wary of the teenager, was already extremely paranoid around him, so she very possibly might take this already slightly ominous information and panic. The best Himiko could do for her was keep it to herself. The information wasn’t hurting Tenko, it wasn’t hurting Himiko, and it wasn’t hurting Korekiyo.

“Just stuff. Things,” Himiko slurs vaguely, “Writing ‘bout what’s happening.”

Tenko spares a strained smile as a response. Himiko spends a second just looking at her, trying to discern what she was feeling, before she exhales softly and clings onto her arm.

“Nobody’s forcing you to hang out with him, y’know,” she adds, “You don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to.”

“...It--” Tenko releases a heavy breath, “I know I was gonna have to, eventually. I mean, it’s… one of the main reasons I didn’t want to come here in the first place… And now _this_ whole mess is happening and the tension is so high and seeing him is the _last_ thing I can do right now but he’s here anyways and I think Angie feels the same-- I _know_ that Angie feels the same--”

“Babe, breathe,” Himiko interrupts. Tenko does as she is instructed, taking a comically large breath in, “You’re fine. Everything’s fine. We’re gonna figure out how to get out of here and then you won’t ever have to see him again.”

“Yeah, I know. I-I know,” she sighs, “ I was just-- I was just worried for you, that’s all.”

Himiko droops sympathetically, allowing a beat to pass before she sarcastically smirks, “You think _you_ were worried? I sat in a vent for _thirty minutes_ waiting for you to reply to my phone calls.”

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, really!” Tenko apologizes frantically, “It won’t happen again, I promise.”

Another pause. Tenko was waiting for Himiko to say something. She inhales and exhales in a slow rhythm, eyes pressed sharply forward, her pace quickening involuntarily to the point where Himiko had to break into an awkward half-jog at random intervals. The hallways were growing barren. People have found a location and stayed there. They all know what they are doing while Tenko and Himiko shuffle aimlessly through the hotel. Himiko stares at the taller brunette with concern hardening her features.

“...You won’t see him again,” the redhead finally says, _“I_ promise.” 

Tenko once again shares a strained smile, nodding in response, her lips pressed thinly together. 

Hm. There was something so weird about second chances. Himiko had been talking to him civilly just moments ago, sharing none of the edge that Tenko currently held. Should she have done that? Since Korekiyo was written to be that awful person he was in the simulator, should she extend a second chance to him? Was it even her place to _give_ him a second chance? Shouldn’t that forgiveness come from the people he actually hurt? Like Tenko? Like _Angie?_

Tenko wasn’t ready to forgive him, that part was incredibly certain. It appeared as if she would _never_ be ready, especially in such a tense situation as this, with a text message threatening major consequences and many of the adults just straight up denying it. So if she wasn’t ready to forgive him, then Himiko shouldn’t, either.

“I know I’m going to see him again,” the brunette hums, almost sorrowfully, “I know I am.”

Okay, Tenko. Until you’re ready to give Korekiyo another chance, Himiko won’t either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> himiko talking to korekiyo: yeah school is boring  
> himiko five seconds later when he's gone: why would i say that. that was the worst possible thing i could have done


	10. i got in a fight! (but they don’t know me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> these darn kids and their shenanigans.... sendin' me to an early grave, i tell ya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SWEAR THAT ONE DAY THESE KIDS WILL LIKE EACH OTHER............. but not today 😏

“I’m tellin’ you, I-I’m not going fucking insane!” Miu hisses, waving her paintbrush in the air at the risk of splattering black paint on people’s clothing, “I’m just relaying what Byakuya told me!! K1-B0 was there. Tell ‘em, K1-B0!!”

K1-B0 winces at her rather careless flailing, frowning at the paint that begins to speckle Miu’s phone. The AI had been placed on the floor in front of her, staring upwards as the rest of the group sat cross-legged in a circle. Rantaro was listening intently to the former inventor’s rambling while Kaede worked vigorously, moving on to the next letter of their banner. For somebody so concerned with leaving, Miu sure wasn’t taking this message seriously. The small group have only managed to paint the word ‘WE’RE’ out of the phrase ‘WE’RE BEING HELD HOSTAGE’. Miu was starting to regret choosing such a long message over a simple ‘S.O.S’. 

“Oh, uh--” K1-B0 blinks, “His exact words were: ‘When we tell you not to go into prohibited areas, perhaps don’t go into a prohibited area. And pass that message onto that Chabashira girl, won’t you?’”

A beat of silence. Rantaro and Kaede share a sarcastic look.

Miu notices it and wilts, “Wh-What!? You know I’m fucking right!!!”

“I mean… Miu…” Rantaro begins cautiously, biting back a playful smirk, “Weren’t you _also_ in the basement…? Pretty hypocritical, if you ask me.”

The strawberry blonde scoffs, playfully shoving at him, “Yeah, well--! I was actually _doing_ shit!”

“Stuff she wasn’t _supposed_ to be doing, if I may add,” K1-B0 interjects cheekily.

“Bitch! Don’t be such a tattle-tail!” Miu says, with a faux-parental point of her finger, “I put you in this world and I can take you back out!!”

“Okay, okay, Miu. I won’t lie, it is pretty suspicious,” Rantaro admits with a gesture of surrender, “...But she probably had good intentions, y’know? Her phone was dead, she was separated from everybody… I can see her running into the basement to try to find people.”

Of course _Rantaro_ would dismiss her. There was a reason he went sniffing around the library way back in the killing game, after all. He knew people could have good intentions, intentions that aren’t necessarily evil but instead curious. Hell, even _Miu_ had curious intentions-- she walked directly into the hotel’s basement just to find information that wasn’t being handed to her. The Tenko that Rantaro was picturing was curious and rather naive, scared of the situation and running towards anything she could get her hands on, even if it meant trespassing into a prohibited area. The Tenko that Miu was spinning in her mind was sharper than that, had intentionally walked into that area for purposes unknown. The unknown was the scariest part. Miu could only assume she was guilty until proven innocent.

“We’re not going to get out of here by targeting each other. We need to focus on finding a way out. If you’re really worked up on it, you could always just ask Himiko,” Rantaro shrugs in suggestion, finishing up his ‘O’ and moving onto the next letter, “I’m sure she’d know.”

“Himiko? Haven’t spoken to that midget in months,” Miu replies, not exactly intending to be insulting. The unkind nickname leaves her mouth much quicker than expected. She notices it just before Kaede is able to tell her off, “Eep--! I-I mean-- I haven’t spoken to her in months.”

Kaede approves with a nod, hesitantly setting her paintbrush down at the cost of splotching black paint on the banner, _Shuichi told me they found Tenko at the front entrance. The four of them are down at reception._

“Four?” Rantaro questions, focused intently on rushing through the letter ‘T’.

 _Kokichi and Himiko are there too,_ Kaede confirms. Both Rantaro and Miu nod, the latter’s lips twitching downwards into a frown. 

The other participants that lingered on the roof flicker their gaze worriedly at the banner. A few of them were monitoring the teens as they worked on the message, while others stared over the edge of the roof with sincere dread, chattering anxiously amongst each other and pointing over at the parking lot. Pointing at a certain building, a watchtower. 

The “watchtower” that the Future Foundation had been muttering and babbling on about wasn’t much to marvel at, in fact many of the people on the roof barely viewed it as a threat at all. It looked more like a tall shed that had been reduced to its skeleton, a steel tower that had been set up haphazardly. Two guards sat in foldable chairs, playing cards over their make-shift table they had created out of a barrel. Miu hadn’t seen them or the watchtower they sat in while entering, probably because her group was one of the first groups here. Somebody had called out to them a while ago, had cupped their hands over their mouth and screamed for help, but the two guards either couldn’t hear or couldn’t be bothered. Even when Miu’s group had joined in on yelling. Even when everybody on the roof was screeching at them as a collective horde. Even after Miu had flipped them off for a solid minute.

The weather up there was actually quite nice. Warm, but windy enough that it cooled things off. It made Miu feel slightly better about the frenzied dread sitting unpleasantly in her stomach. 

A gust of wind blows fiercely past the group, rushing Kaede’s hair into her own eyes. Her friends shuffle their knees over the banner so it doesn’t whisk away in the wind, while Kaede sputters and flaps her hair out of her face, forgetting about the paintbrush that was in her right hand. Tiny spots of black paint dot her blonde hair and even go as far as to stain Miu’s mom jeans. Kaede warbles an apology, her expression guilty enough to express her remorse over staining Miu’s pants without words. She reaches over to swipe the paint off of her jeans but instead stains it even further. Miu accepts her friend’s apology sharply while also swatting her painted hands away.

“Is the banner almost finished?” another participant requests, an Ultimate Imposter with patience which had reached its end. They noticed Kaede and Miu play-fighting and quickly moved to check up on their progress.

“No, sorry. We’re working on it,” Rantaro replies.

“Hurry, please,” they continue, shooting a warning look over at Miu who in return shrivels in embarrassment. 

Kaede was trying her hardest to contain her laughter, a few giggles sneaking through as she saw Rantaro repressing his laughter as well. Miu lets the shame of being caught not working get the best of her.

“Ey, Dumb and Dumber. Take this shit seriously!!” she hisses silently, dipping her paintbrush straight into the paint can.

Before Kaede picks up her paintbrush again, she puckishly signs, _Miu. I’ve had to stop you two times before you drew a dick on the banner._

“That was different. That was _art._ People appreciate art!!” she defends, “Especially when it comes from my gorgeous girl brain!!!”

Rantaro snorts, “Glad to know that only thing on your brain is di--”

“Are any of you certain this message is allowed?” K1-B0 quickly interrupts, pixelated eyebrow raised, “I’ve been rereading the rules sent through the unknown number, and it did warn you about contacting the outside…”

That question has been on Miu’s mind, as well. But far in the back. Shoved aside by her sheer will to leave this place by any means necessary. She wanted people to know what was happening to her, what had been threatened to a cast of people who have already experienced death first-hand. Miu wasn’t willing to wait and be cautious, because she knew that people would begin to grow anxious and paranoid. She knows people will begin taking this threat seriously, and will begin to ask themselves just who the traitors could be. Just who was _expendable._ So Miu was going to finish this banner. Nobody’s gonna throw a hissy fit over a stupid sign, over four meesly words.

“We’ll be careful, Keebs,” Rantaro promises with a warm smile, dipping his paintbrush into the paint again.

The AI smiles back, however suspicious they were, “....Alright. This situation is rather… alarming. I just hope all of you are safe.”

“Aw. That’s really sweet. We’ll be fine, I promise.”

Miu grimaces. Rantaro was in no position to be handing out promises. Especially ones that he likely wouldn’t be able to keep. 

Why was she thinking that? Why was such a simple phrase such as “we’ll be fine” so hard to believe? _Shit,_ Miu was such a pessimist. Her friends didn’t even know the half of it. She’s seen some of her classmates adapting to the real world after the killing game and improving themselves, but Miu’s pessimistic, narcissistic, and borderline hyper-paranoid personality just seemed to be getting fucking worse. The situation at hand was certainly not helping, even if the idea of there being thirty traitors amongst them was unconfirmed, unvalidated, and basically unacknowledged by many. The quicker she leaves the better. The quicker she leaves the better.

Miu will be fine once she’s out of here. The sentiment is growing repetitive, now. She’s drilling it into her head, mentally preparing herself for danger to come rushing from behind. She just needs to get out of here.

“Alright! I will take your word for it,” K1-B0 nods, “Excuse me if I seem unresponsive for a while, it’s hard to process this new data and talk at the same time.”

“Ah, shit. The fucking-- God, I forgot you needed to be near my laptop,” Miu curses herself, “I’ll get you close once we finish this banner, yeah?”

“Take your time! I will do what I can from here.”

“You’re the best, Keebs,” Miu waves goodbye. Kaede and Rantaro echo her goodbye as they finish their painted letters and move on to the next one. The AI blinks off, Miu’s phone empty and blank. K1-B0’s absence made the former inventor feel uneasy. She fills the silence with a mumbled, “...Kaede, how the fuck is your handwriting so neat? That shit looks straight up typed.”

 _Thank you,_ the former pianist replies with a fond smile. They simmer back into silence immediately after. Miu almost enjoyed it. It wasn't uncomfortable, wasn’t tense or necessarily awkward. They were just working quietly, enjoying each other’s company. It doesn’t last that long.

Before any of them could find another topic to discuss, a familiar voice joins the conversation with a shocked, “Oh, Kaede?”

Miu whips her head upwards at the voice, as does the blonde next to her. Shuichi enters the roof with a goofy smile, shuffling over towards the group and greeting his friends. Kaede drops her paintbrush again to begin chatting with him, while Rantaro continues to paint and speak at the same time. Coming up behind Shuichi, having joined him on his adventure to the roof, was none other than--

_Oh, fuck no._

“Hey, the gang’s all here!” Kokichi chirps, skipping buoyantly over to the banner and waving at each member of the group. Miu grits her teeth, glaring daggers into the floor to avoid eye contact with the purple teenager, “Good morning, Rantaro! Good morning, Kaede!”

Rantaro and Kaede wave back cautiously, the latter shooting questioning glances at the strawberry blonde. The former pianist knew what was coming, could sense the upcoming argument like she had some secret sixth sense that warned her when Miu and Kokichi would butt heads. Kokichi turns to Miu, who was still trying her best to ignore him, his hand still waving repetitively in front of her face despite little reaction. That’s what he wanted from her. A reaction.

“Hello, Miu!” he greets, continuing to wave his hand. She snarls at the floor but doesn’t answer, “Hello, Miu! Hello, Miu! Hello--”

“We had no idea you would be on the roof. Kokichi and I were just gonna check out what was happening and leave,” Shuichi cuts off with his own conversation to Kaede. He scratches the back of his neck, turning towards the strawberry blonde, “Miu, I thought you went to the basement?”

Yeah, she did. And she found out some pretty incriminating evidence against one of his little friends. But she wasn’t about to admit that openly, especially not in front of this grape-scented goblin, who was _still_ waving his hand in front of Miu’s face. 

_Miu and I wanted to help out with the banner. Rantaro was already up here,_ Kaede answers, gesturing at the message in front of her. That was half true, Miu supposes. Kaede expressed her interest in helping to message the outside, but Miu only came up to the roof so she could explain the information she had received. Rantaro got caught up in the gossip. He wasn’t one to spill secrets, anyways, so Miu trusted him with her worries.

“Oh, is Shuichi there?” K1-B0 questions, returning from their calibration and only hearing one of the new voices, “Hello, Shuichi! It is nice to see you again!”

“K1-B0! Hey! How are you, what’s going on?” the former detective greets excitedly, looming over the banner and Miu’s phone so the AI could see his face. Miu leans away from him as he gets closer, face shriveling in exaggerated disgust.

“I am alright! Miu has told me all about the situation you are in, though,” they reply. Shuichi frowns at the reminder of what was happening, “I am doing my best to help!”

“And I’ll get you to that computer eventually,” Miu finishes.

“That’s awesome, K1-B0, thank you!” Shuichi beams, “Has Miu shown you the text--”

“Hey, K1-B0!! How’s life in the 2D realm?” Kokichi interjects.

K1-B0 pauses, almost as if sighing internally, “...Nice to see you again, Kokichi. Consider this prejudice documented.” 

“There’s the robot we know and love,” Kokichi simpers, “Have you hacked into the mainframe yet?”

“Oh, that reminds me--” at the excuse, K1-B0 immediately flickers off and exits the conversation. Miu wishes she could do the same.

“What’s happening at reception?” Rantaro asks, “I’m guessing since you’re still here the doors are shut for good?”

Shuichi opens his mouth to speak, but Kokichi very hastily cuts him off with a rather serious, “All of the doors are covered in Invinci-Glass and the electronic locks are controlled by an outside source.”

The group stare at the former detective, as if expecting him to give the _real_ answer, but Shuichi only blinks in slight shock. As if honesty was the last thing he was expecting from the purple teenager.

“U-Uh, yeah. Exactly what he said,” Shuichi confirms with a baffled gesture. 

Miu scoffs, gaze still plastered to the ground, “Wow, the lying abortion actually told the truth for once? What a fuckin’ shocker.”

Kokichi’s rather genuine smile twitches downwards at the insult. It spends maybe a split second locked in that frown before it spreads up to his ears again, this time malicious and bitter. Miu swats herself internally, knowing that she had started this dispute and that Kaede would undoubtedly be disappointed with her once they’ve finished yelling at each other. Her head feels heavy, as if it was intentionally keeping her gaze down before she stared upwards at Kokichi’s spiteful glare. Maybe she could just ignore him. Maybe she could be-- as much as she hates being so-- The bigger person. 

“Awwww, don’t feel bad, Miu!” Kokichi comforts falsely, “I know you feel awful, but just know your inferiority complex is completely justified!”

All attempts at ignoring him go out the window. Miu’s head snaps up to face him, now engaged in the argument, “God, you fucking-- You-- I’m _jealous_ of all the people who _haven’t_ met you, you dickless, awful little _manwhore--!!_ ”

 _Guys! Come on!_ Kaede signs with a heavy sigh, _Can we please just drop this?_

“Yeah, drop this like your _mother_ dropped you on your fucking head as an infant _,”_ Miu snarls at Kokichi.

“This isn’t constructive,” Rantaro says in a mousy voice, mocking their therapist while also finishing up his final letter, “We need to use our constructive words.”

 _Wait, hold on, that actually might be a good idea. Do you remember that one exercise we had to do?_ Kaede asks the green teenager, _The ‘Speak My Truth’ exercise?_

“‘Speak My Truth’?” Miu parrots, “That might be challenging for this cocky little _shit.”_

Kokichi squints harshly, “I don’t think I’ll be the one having problems, considering I’m up against an idiot whore."

“I-Idiot whore!?!”

 _You’re not up against anybody. It’s a communication exercise,_ Kaede explains patiently, _You start your sentences with ‘To speak my truth…’, and then answer using ‘I acknowledge’ or ‘I appreciate’. Rantaro and I had to do it for a solid month._

“And we’ve never been closer,” Rantaro replies in monotone, dropping his paintbrush into the can before turning to the blonde, “Here’s an example. Kaede, to speak my truth, I feel angry at you because you promised to bring green dakara candy to the hotel and I have yet to see it.”

Kaede exhales in laughter, playfully rolling her eyes before returning, _I acknowledge that you feel angry, and I appreciate you telling me. To speak my truth, I forgot about them._

“See? Healthy communication,” Rantaro says.

“Fuck that,” Miu spits, “Ouma can kiss my ass.”

Kaede turns to Miu. It’s perhaps the last thing the strawberry blonde wanted her to do, because it meant that the former pianist wanted her to start the exercise. Kaede wanted Miu to be the first person to engage in, quote on quote, “healthy communication”. Miu doesn’t return her expectant gaze, her blue eyes drilled into Kokichi’s forehead.

 _Your turn,_ Kaede signs, confirming that it was, in fact, Miu who had to begin this exercise.

She couldn’t do it. Miu found herself staring at Kokichi with absolutely nothing constructive to say to him, nothing even the slightest bit kind she could tell him. The only types of thoughts that emerged when she looked at him were heavy and weighted, all of her opinions of Kokichi appearing in the form of agitated buzzing and painful flashes. There was not one word she could utter about that boy that wouldn’t be in the form of insults, that wouldn’t curse him for constructing her murder or taunt him for being so evil and malicious. There was nothing Miu could say to him that wouldn’t make Kaede disappointed in her, and that was what was leaving her voiceless. 

She glares at Kokichi for so long, the only thoughts bouncing in her brain filled with vile hatred and resentment, that the Ultimate Imposter from earlier has to walk over and snatch the banner from the group, knowing that they were taking too long. Miu stays silent as Shuichi apologizes and offers to help finish up the final letters. She stays silent as an Ultimate Choreographer advises them to leave the roof in case the message goes haywire. She stays silent through Kaede’s concerned glances, through Rantaro’s confused hums, through Shuichi’s continuous mumbled apologies. Miu blanks entirely. 

At one point, Kaede realizes that the strawberry blonde won’t, _can’t_ start this conversation. She slowly averts her gaze towards Shuichi, silently pleading with him.

Shuichi sighs before turning to his friend, “Kokichi, you first.”

“Okie dokie!” Kokichi immediately returns, as if he had expected Miu to completely fall short of the requirements for this exercise, “Miu! To speak my truth, I think you are a conniving little bitch, and I would appreciate it if you threw yourself off of that ledge over there!”

Everybody immediately jumps on him at once, telling him off for his poor wording and scolding him for being so harsh. Kokichi giggles sweetly, _viciously,_ and waves his hands in surrender.

“Jeez! I was only joking!” he justifies. He was not joking. That insult hit Miu directly in the gut, “To speak my _real_ truth, I think you are a horrible person.”

Miu’s face was beginning to hurt with how deeply she was frowning at him, her teeth gritted so intensely that she was ready to chip a tooth. Kaede’s mouth opens, as if she was calculating her next words, carefully choosing how she was about to form this next sentence. She looks over at Shuichi, whose eyebrows lower apologetically, and then looks over at Rantaro, who shrugs half-heartedly. Finally, after a moment of deliberation, she very slowly turns towards Miu.

 _...Alright, your turn,_ she gestures.

Miu sputters, throwing her hands in the air, “Wh-What!? What the fuck am I supposed to--!?”

Kaede doesn’t reply, only waits for her answer patiently. How was Miu supposed to reply to that? He just flat out insulted her. Was she expected to insult him back? Obviously Kaede didn’t want her to return the favor, but instead wanted her to react calmly and with patience so that the enemies could engage in a constructive conversation. Miu stares at every place that isn’t Kokichi, just so she could uncloud her mind from this baleful haze that he’s sent her directly into. She stares at the floor she’s still seated on, despite the banner having been ripped away from her quite some time ago. She stares at Kaede, perhaps hoping she would change her mind. She stares at the entrance to the roof, internally pleading that somebody, literally _anybody_ from her class comes walking in to create some form of distraction.

It doesn’t happen. She takes a deep breath, the inhale sharp against her ribcage.

“...I acknowledge that… You think I am a bad person,” she grits through her teeth, fists clenching at her sides. Her words were choppy, and sounded as if they were physically hurting her, “I appreciate... you telling me. To my face. Every fucking time we see each other.”

Kaede claps twice in achievement, her smile wide and proud, _Okay, you don’t have to do any more. But see! That wasn’t so hard, was it?_

The lack of reply really told the blonde that this was perhaps the hardest thing Miu has ever done in her entire life. And it wasn’t as if she even complimented Kokichi, or anything. She just repeated what he had told her, spoken hatefully and with acid dripping off of her tongue. Miu and Kokichi had their eyes locked on each other, both of their gazes unwavering, truly proving that both of them were too stubborn to be the one to break first.

Kaede awkwardly drums her hands against her lap before starting again, _Now that this argument is over, if you could just help me move the paint back into the shed? It’s near the--_

“But, to speak _my_ truth, I don’t think you’re in any fuckin’ place to tell me how awful I am,” Miu completes. 

Kaede’s lips form a thin, horizontal line, _… Let’s not let this derail._

Kokichi’s smile twists and contorts, as if he had expected this from Miu. Expected this exact reaction, “I acknowledge that you think I am a bad person--”

“No, I think you’re an even _worse_ person than I am,” Miu spits.

 _Alright,_ Kaede gestures, taking pauses between her singing to create a barricade between the two with her arm, _Stop before this goes any further._

“And to speak my truth--” Miu knows Kaede doesn’t want her to continue, but the words fall out of her mouth anyways. She could feel the strain on her throat already, the screaming beginning to catch up to her injured neck, “--You have no right to say if I’m good or not, because you’re a shitty, over-glorified garden gnome that hasn’t changed at-fucking-all!”

Kokichi’s strained smile does not match his wide, twitching eyes. There’s something frenzied behind his purple irises, something scornful and disgruntled.

“See, this is a great example of what not to do,” Rantaro tries to halt, knowing it was useless to attempt stopping them but still tries to do so anyways, “We don’t need to do this, guys. Let’s stop it while we can.”

Kokichi hears him but doesn’t agree, “I _acknowledge_ that you think I haven’t changed, and I _acknowledge_ that your enormous ego must feel soooooo bad about not winning some _fictional_ killing game,” he leans forward, hovering over Miu, taking the height advantage and running with it, “And I really appreciate your stupid, dimwitted, _dumbass_ plan to kill me immediately backfiring and kicking you in the ass!”

Shuichi shakes his head, “Alright, Kokichi, that’s--”

“Shut the hell up, Shercock! This isn’t your fuckin’ fight!” Miu barks. Her throat was starting to hurt like hell, but she was not about to lose this argument, “Kokichi, to speak my truth--”

“To speak _my_ truth, I think you I think you _have_ changed,” Kokichi cuts off, his words laced with pure venom, “You’ve somehow become even _more_ selfish and egotistical!”

“Yeah, no. They’re always like this,” Rantaro tells a concerned participant behind him with a dismissive wave, “All good over here. We’re all good.”

“I _appreciate_ you acknowledging how the killing game has changed me!” Miu growls through her teeth, mimicking his strained smile as she continued to clench her jaw, “And to speak my fucking truth, I think you’re an insufferable little _bitch_ whose entire personality was made to be annoying!!”

“I’m annoying? _I’m_ annoying!?” Kokichi laughs sardonically, “To speak my truth, your one defining character trait is being _horny!!_ How does it feel being _fanservice!?”_

 _“It’s not like I asked for--”_

Her argument is weakened drastically by a sudden coughing fit, her agitated shouting finally catching up to her strained throat. Kaede’s eyes widen in concern, her arms reaching over to pat her back as if Miu was choking or something. The former inventor _despises_ the sudden crowd of pity looks she receives, not just from her group but from the majority of the participants on the roof, who have all turned to her as she wheezes pathetically on the floor. They have stopped their operation, have stopped working on their escape just to stare at the scene. This was embarrassing. This was _embarrassing_ and Kokichi was entirely at fault. Both for this argument, and for her throat being absolutely fucked. 

The teenager in question was staring at her blankly. It’s as if all previous emotion had been wiped from Kokichi’s face, suddenly reduced to complete vacancy and a hollowness that Miu couldn’t entirely identify. Shuichi was talking to him, but it looked as if Kokichi was letting his words enter one ear and passing directly out the other. The purple teenager stared as her coughing fit dissolves, as if waiting for the storm to pass before he made his next strike. The participants around her slowly began to resume their normal positions, once again turning towards the banner.

This dread Miu was feeling almost certainly comes directly from Kokichi, was dragged in with him as soon as he entered the building. Maybe Miu should have expected bad things to happen. She should have treated the former supreme leader like a bad omen. It would have bypassed this entire argument, would have saved her from this embarrassment she was enduring currently.

Soon Miu realizes that perhaps this awful feeling deep in her stomach came from her current location. Her subconscious was heightening her anxiety purely because it remembers what had happened the last time she was on the roof. It all just felt so… familiar. She was surrounded by people, practically crowded by people from all angles, yet she couldn’t help but feel entirely isolated with Kokichi. Kaede was rubbing her back in some useless attempt at comfort, Rantaro was pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head as if he was a disappointed father, and Shuichi was continuing to tell Kokichi off. 

The Ultimate Imposter and a buddy of theirs had draped the banner over the ledge of the building, presenting the message to the outside for everybody to see. A participant, an Ultimate Florist from Season 4, was leaning over the edge, staring at the watchtower with wide eyes. Something had caught her attention. She mutters a hesitant, “...Hey, it looks like they--” but everybody is too busy to pay attention.

"L-Let's just drop this. Kokichi, we're leaving," Shuichi demands hesitantly, rushing to pull both himself and his friend away from Miu.

Kokichi smiles as if nothing had happened at all, "Okie dokie! See ya later, Miu!"

The strawberry blonde was not about to allow this man to win the argument. She could have stopped herself much, _much_ longer ago if she had wanted to surrender, but it was too late now to back out. Miu clears her throat, swatting Kaede off of her, and pushes herself off of the floor with an aggravated grunt. Kokichi notices she’s about to speak again and crosses his arms. Now that she has the high ground, the height difference is very obvious.

“You know what!?” she snarls, voice hoarse and malicious, “I acknowledge my shitty personality. I _acknowledge_ my stupid plan backfiring and killing me. But to speak _my_ truth--”

 _Miu,_ ** _don’t,_** Kaede warns, waving her arms in front of Miu’s face in some voiceless attempt to stop her.

 _“--You_ should have been sent right to fucking hell with me. _Not Gonta!”_

The silence is piercing in Miu’s ears. A sharp pang of guilt-- of _regret_ , possibly-- instantly strikes her in the gut. It hits her like a punch to the stomach. Everybody around her stares at her with wide eyes, knowing damn well that she’s gone one step too far. Kokichi is perhaps the only one who hasn’t dropped his jaw to the floor or opened his eyes to the size of saucers. He stares back sarcastically, almost tiredly, with his eyelids drooping and his smile tiny. 

Rantaro squints at the both of them, eyebrows furrowed in disdain, “...Happy, now?”

Miu flinches. In all honestly… kinda. Some warped, less kind part of her felt satisfaction in having the last laugh, in finishing the argument. But every other part of her just felt discontent. Like it didn’t help at all. It just made her feel even worse, made the situation feel even more uncomfortable.

And besides, even if she thought she had the last laugh, Kokichi was still ready to kick and fight no matter how hard she beat him into the ground.

“Well... to speak my truth,” Kokichi begins, voice much softer and almost threatening. His hands are folded in front of him as he rocks innocently back and forth on his feet, “I think Kaede and Rantaro would be better off dropping you now, before you let the paranoia get to your head again and you stab another person in the back.”

Something inside of Miu snaps. She can almost hear it.

 _“That’s it--!!”_ she screeches, lunging for the can of black paint.

Kaede gasps, also jumping to her feet to restrain Miu before she could get her hands on the paint. She instinctively exclaims in shock, an incredibly hoarse, incredibly silent, _“No!”_ The one word then sends the former pianist into a coughing fit much worse than Miu’s, wheezing and croaking as her arms still cage the strawberry blonde. Kokichi jumps giddily, clapping to himself in complete joy, as if Miu’s fit of rage was the most entertaining thing he has ever seen in his life. 

Miu feels as if there is no oxygen, despite being on the roof of a building. Despite being surrounded by nothing but sky. She tries to take deep breaths but only finds herself coming up short, her lungs constricting and her heart pounding directly against her ribcage. Nothing rational comes to mind, every calculative part of her thrown directly out of the window. Over the edge of the roof. 

The other killing game participants around them were beginning to rush over as well, separating everybody from each other with patronizing lectures and condescending glares. An Ultimate Wrestler grabs Miu from behind and hoists her into the air, suspending her from kicking or punching the former supreme leader, as the strawberry blonde had threatened, “in the nuts”. The rather sudden approach from behind startles Miu to no end, and she ends up thrashing even harder, voice dying in her injured throat. She manages to get a handful of black paint, right before being grabbed, and throws it at Kokichi. It splatters into the former supreme leader’s eyes, over Shuichi’s sweater, and stains Kaede’s blonde hair even further. 

Kokichi continued bouncing in place but was now fanning his eyes, rubbing paint out of them and probably _into_ them in the process. Shuichi sighs, his patience at an all-time low, and very uncharacteristically huffs.

“Why did it have to come to this!? Y-You could have just… I don’t know-- Done _anything else!?”_ he shouts over the ruckus, using baffled gestures to further his point as he rushes over to assist Kaede. The blonde had given up trying to stop Miu and was now hunched over the floor, hand on her throat, coughing into the ground. 

The Ultimate Florist was still peering over the edge, “Guys? I-I think we need to take the banner down, they look--” 

“Everybody is stressed out. _Everybody_ is stressed out,” Rantaro says firmly to his friends, standing up from the floor and ignoring the florist, “You have to stop arguing so childishly--” 

“I hate your _fucking guts,_ Ouma!! Let me out of this hotel!! _Let me out!!”_ Miu screeches desperately, legs thrashing and eyes stinging with hot tears, **_“Let me--”_ **

The Ultimate Florist yips in fear, turning towards the crowd with a terrified, “Guys! We need to take the banner down, the guards have--” 

A round of bullets cut her off. Guns. They have guns.

The guards had fired upwards, piercing the banner and flying bullets over participant’s heads. Everybody on the roof squeals and ducks for cover, shielding their heads with their arms and screaming in absolute terror. The Ultimate Wrestler just fucking _drops_ Miu on the ground. 

The ricochet of bullets comes from the watchtower itself, from those two guards who were only supposed to be playing cards, who appeared innocent enough at first glance. The participants shriek and yell and bark at each other, gesturing frantically for some of the braver ones to take down the banner. To throw it over the ledge before the guards grew angrier, before they actually managed to hit somebody. Miu’s face was directly to the floor, the noise around her muffled as if she was submerged underwater, her arms caged around her head.

 _“The banner!! Throw it! Throw it!!”_ people are yelling around her, voices ringing through the onslaught of bullets.

Somebody manages their way over to the sign, perhaps the Ultimate Florist from before, and begins unknotting one of the ropes that suspended the banner in the air. Another participant slides over to the other side and begins rapidly untying the other knot. Eventually the banner is released. It flies pathetically to the ground. As soon as the knots are untied and the message is flung away, the guards stop shooting their warning bullets. The noise comes to a screeching halt.

The silence was almost too much to handle.

The participants slowly, _slowly_ begin to raise their heads, frantically asking just what was happening. Miu lifts her gaze upwards, her heartbeat in the tips of her fingers, her breathing sporadic and unsteady. Her entire group was on the floor. The Ultimate Imposter had appeared near them, almost as if they had teleported, asking everybody in the roof questions while also creating a barricade between the teenagers and the watchtower. They were the first person on their feet again. It gave Miu the slight courage to rise, as well.

“Is everybody okay? Nobody’s hurt?” they confirm. Miu’s group nods dumbly, mouths hanging open in complete shock.

The Ultimate Choreographer was trembling where he sat, his arms clutching his own sides, “H-Holy shit-- They were trying to kill us-- Oh, _shit,_ they were trying to kill us--!”

“Don’t panic. Move inside and cover your heads,” the Ultimate Imposter orders, sharply gesturing the crowd towards the door and towards the exit.

Miu couldn’t process the situation quickly enough. She just picks herself up off the floor and sprints, darting past Kaede, darting past Rantaro and Shuichi. Leaving Kokichi behind in the dust. She runs so quickly to her hotel room that nobody was behind her when she turned back around.

So, yeah. Contacting the outside was a bust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe gun go pew pew


	11. but like any misfit, i spit on their good advice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> miu freaks out, himiko eats lunch

Miu locks the door and doesn’t open it.

She has to remind herself for a moment that these hotel rooms weren’t soundproof, not like the Academy for Gifted Juveniles was. Her urge to scream would have to stifle itself in the back of her throat, choke itself down behind her teeth, and dissolve unpleasantly into her stomach. Reality hits her like a train, like a massive steel train with barbed wire forged onto its front. She barely reaches the desk chair before her legs collapse on themselves. 

She’s sobbing unattractively into her hands, babbling words with little meaning and repeating sentences that were borderline incoherent. As if she was attempting to piece together the situation by throwing useless phrases into the air, phrases laced with terrified inhales and croaked hiccups. She takes a few seconds just sitting in the chair before she begins alternating between pacing around the room and collapsing pathetically onto different pieces of furniture, all the while garbling complete gibberish. At one point she couldn’t help but wonder just who exactly she was talking to, because it didn’t feel as if it was herself anymore.

She had grabbed her phone in her horrified dash off of the roof, but tossed it almost carelessly onto the desk. The silence of it all haunted her. 

Miu rushes into a panicked daze, checking underneath the double bed, in her closet and in her bathroom for anything that might jump and attack her. She yanks the curtains closed, flushing the hotel room into total darkness except for one, solemn lamp that had remained turned on since Kaede and Miu had first checked in. The strawberry blonde collapses onto the floor near her suitcase, rummaging almost desperately for something to defend herself with, anything to protect herself--

A flurry of knocks on the door quickly interrupts her. Miu sharply inhales, grabbing the first thing from her suitcase and gripping it tightly in her hands.

“Wh-Who is it!?” she demands fiercely, hairdryer held in defense, “Y-Y-You better think _twice_ before you--”

She’s interrupted by another round of knocks. Miu realizes with slight relief that it was only Kaede, who was unable to yell her name through the door. It was either the blonde, or some creepy motherfucker who wasn’t saying their name.

“Leave me alone, Bakamatsu!!” she hisses at the door, hiccuping as she pushes herself up to her feet, hairdryer clutched over her shoulder, “I’ve cried all of my makeup off and I look u-uglllyyyyyyyy!!”

She can hear a sigh through the door. There’s perhaps a two second pause before the electronic lock on the door clicks open and Kaede enters, panting as if she had ran here and expression frenzied. Miu jumps as she enters, nearly chucking the hairdryer directly at the blonde.

“Wh-- How did you get in!?” the former inventor practically sobs.

Kaede finishes locking the door behind her and turns back around with a semi-panicked, semi-agitated gesture of, _This is my room, too!!_

Miu releases a disgruntled noise from the back of her throat, garbling something that very closely mimicked a combination of the words “so!?” and “sorry”. She continues to mindlessly babble as she falls backwards into her desk’s chair, her gestures implying that she’s having a distinguished conversation but her words practically incomprehensible. Kaede exhales in response, nervously rubbing at her elbow as she paces back and forth in front of the closet. After a solid minute of Miu babbling and heaving, her breaths heavy and her sobs loud, she finally manages to close her lips. The two girls sat in fearful silence, quiet within the darkness, the only noise to break it being Miu’s distressed hiccups and borderline hyperventilation. 

Kaede eventually stops pacing and falls back on the wall, so carelessly that she emits a pained grunt once connecting with the closet. Her eyes were wide, glassy and unfocused, staring at the double bed as if it was a wild animal waiting to attack.

Eventually the silence becomes too much for Miu. Without lifting her head up to meet the blonde’s eyes, she whimpers an almost inaudible, “Wh-What do we _do?”_

No answer. Kaede was still staring outwards, with her eyebrows furrowed and face hardened. She’s thinking. She’s so quiet that Miu grows even more restless.

“I don’t-- I don’t get what’s fucking _happening,”_ Miu wails, spinning herself around in her chair and looking for something to grab, something to do, something to hold before she goes absolutely insane. She grips onto the desk like it is the only thing keeping her afloat, “Why is this _happening?”_

_How would I know?_ Kaede returns, gestures sloppy and rushed, _It’s not like I’m behind all of this!_

“W-Well if you are, you better let a bitch know!!” Miu snaps back, wheezing again and placing her hand over her chest in some hopeless attempt at steadying her rapid heartbeat, “Jesus fuck-- I never should have-- Fuck. _Fuck!!_ I _never_ should have come here!! Shit, I’m gonna die _again--”_

She pushes herself off of the chair and marches over to the window, opening the curtains a miniscule amount, just enough to peek through. The outside was barren. The watchtower was still standing tall, the guards having returned to their card game as if they hadn’t shot a round of bullets at a group of people a few minutes ago. Their banner was sitting dumbly on the floor of the hotel, holes upon holes having been shot through it. Miu whips the curtains closed.

“F-Fuck. Okay,” she whistles breathily to herself, feet shuffling as she attempts hopelessly to stabilize herself and grasp the task at hand. She rushes back to her suitcase and scavenges into it, throwing clothes over her shoulder until she finally locates her laptop. She slams the device down onto her desk and pulls herself frantically into her chair, “Y-You gotta be smarter. You gotta be _fucking_ smarter this time. Don’t be a little bitch.”

She wipes her nose with her sleeve and opens her laptop with such ferocity that it almost appeared as if she would rip the screen right from its hinges. She mashes her keyboard so frantically that her computer couldn’t understand what password she was typing in. It beeps angrily at her, its bright light glaring into her eyes, forbidding her from entering until she collected herself and calmed the fuck down. Every failed attempt only furthers Miu’s panic, only makes her want to work faster, until eventually she’s slamming her hands against the keyboard and sobbing at it.

Kaede glides over to her desk silently, movements almost robotic, before she reaches over to Miu’s laptop and slowly shuts the screen. Mimicking the computer, Miu also folds over, collapsing onto the desk with her shoulders bouncing in infrequent timing. 

Kaede pulls up a cylinder stool from next to the television stand and cautiously sits down. Her hands fold on the desk, and for a moment it looks like she was just about to sit there and stare at Miu’s head before she eventually taps on her shoulder.

Miu flinches at her touch, sharply glaring upwards with a warbled, “What?”

Kaede wipes under her eyes before her facial expression turns much more determined and firm, _Alright. Tough love time._

Miu stares at her with wide eyes, before pushing herself backwards in her chair, fanning her face in a rather useless attempt to stop herself from hyperventilating and crying.

“Got it. Give it to me rough,” she winces immediately, “I didn’t mean for--” she’s interrupted by a hiccup that sends her further into sobbing, “I-I didn’t want that to sound _hornnyyyyyyy……”_

Kaede grabs her by the face and turns her around so that they are staring at each other before she firmly signs, _This is serious, okay? ...I tried to deny it for as long as I could, but this is serious._

“Fucking _duh!_ Great, Kaede, I’m glad you’ve decided to take this shit seriously!!” Miu objects, “I-I was freaking out and you fucking laughed at me!! You _laughed_ at me, you _and_ Rantaro!!” she distraughtly yanks her laptop back open, “I was _right_ to take this seriously! We’re in a hotel fuckin’ _filled_ with freaks and murderers!!! And that-- That means I must be right about Tenko,” she slaps her palm against her forehead roughly, “O-Of course I’m right, I’m a goddamn _genius!_ I-I’m right about this, I’m right about this, I’m--”

 _MIU,_ Kaede signs before grabbing Miu’s shoulders to stabilize her once more, slamming her laptop screen back down, _Stop panicking! Take a deep breath, okay?_

Miu does not. Her breath hitches in her throat as she disobediently shakes her head no.

Kaede’s shoulders slump, _We don’t have time to worry about things we don’t understand. You have really important information that could help everybody._

“Oh, _no fuckin’ pressure--”_

_Miu! Please!_ Kaede interrupts hastily, _We need to be level-headed about this, okay? I’m scared too!_

Miu squints at the blonde in front of her, inhaling and exhaling in a steady enough rhythm that she’s able to focus on the girl. Kaede was staring back at her, maintaining fierce eye contact, but couldn’t mask her shoulders rising and falling in an almost over-exaggerated fashion, her fingers vibrating every time her arms dropped to her sides. Kaede was scared, that was for sure. And Miu felt like a dick not saying anything about it. Her own panic seemed to overpower the slight empathy she may still have in her body, stationing herself in the middle of the universe and pushing everything else out of orbit.

The blonde sighs, noticing Miu was actually trying to calm down for once, and continues to sign, _Those electronic locks are likely the only way out of here. You are probably the only person here with the technology--_

“D-Did you just see what those cucks did that sign!? W-W-We’re gonna walk out this building and get _shot--”_

 _No, we’re not,_ Kaede dismisses rather quickly, _Miu, we’re going to tell the others about the information you--_

“I’m not tellin’ Makoto shit!” Miu interrupts once more, palms slapping against her desk, “I-I’m not g-gonna place a target on my back just because I have all of the information! They’re-- They’re gonna think I’m a traitor and they’re gonna-- I’m _not_ gonna do it, Kaede--”

 _I didn’t say anything about Makoto! In fact,_ **_don’t_ ** _tell Makoto. You’re right,_ Kaede continues, _But we have to tell our class at least. That way we can all work together._

Miu glares at Kaede as if she was an idiot, “I’m not working with those losers. I-I can do this _myself,”_ at Kaede’s disheartened frown, the strawberry blonde quickly shrivels, knowing she said something wrong, “Th-There are _thirty_ traitors! That’s too specific of a fuckin’ number to be a lie!!!!”

 _...You really think somebody in our class is a traitor?_ Kaede asks cautiously, _You don’t even know what that is._

“W-Well--! Maybe I don’t know what that means yet, but I know Tenko is one of ‘em! And I’ll bet all of my money on Kokichi bein’ one too!!” Miu opens her laptop back up again, this time rational enough to slowly punch in her password, “A-And… I don’t know… I don’t know these people as well as you do, Kaede!! I’m not _friends_ with these people. Fuck it, _all_ of you could be--”

Her voice drifts as the sudden realization reaches her, draining all color from her face and freezing her almost hauntingly. The idea practically slaps Miu in the face, paranoia running eerily up her spine and through her fingertips. Kaede raises a concerned eyebrow, her worry conveyed without any gesture.

“You would…” Miu swallows roughly, the feeling harsh in her throat, “Y-You would tell me, right…? You would tell me… if you were--”

 _What? Miu,_ Kaede interjects, scooting herself closer to the desk. She takes a little longer than she should have to finish her statement with, _Of course I would._

Miu sits in tense silence, before silently adding, “...And I would tell you. I would tell you if I was about to fuck you over, and I wouldn’t-- Kokichi wasn’t right about me stabbing you in the back,” she hiccups, a reminder to slow down before continuing, “I trust you, or something. I guess. Okay? Fuck,” she clears her throat before she completely loses her edgy persona, “But I don’t trust those other nerds, so I’m not gonna tell them shit and I don’t know why you’re trying to get me to!!” 

_Because Kokichi was right,_ Kaede says, _Back in the hotel room, I mean._

Miu’s right eye twitches. It’s not as if she even _heard_ his name. Only saw it being signed. She watched Kaede gesture the first three letters of his name and immediately got hit with a wave of agitation, her chest tightening and her teeth gritting. That stupid little gremlin always has to widdle his way into conversations, just _has_ to make himself known and heard even when Miu wanted to see him least. 

Seeing his name being spelled out sends her back to the argument, to the harsh name calling and even harsher jabs at their pasts. It sends her back to the banner, to her throwing paint everywhere, to the paint that still found itself in Kaede’s hair and staining Miu’s hands and pants. She looks down at her fists. There’s paint fuckin’ _everywhere_. It’s mostly dried now, but a lot of it had been wiped off on the curtains and on random articles of clothing she threw out of her luggage. Miu felt bad about it for maybe a millisecond before she remembered just what this hotel had thrown her into. So fuck their curtains.

 _What he said about the killing game. I tried finding the mastermind, and I took matters…_ Kaede pauses for a beat, _Into my own hands. It just made things worse. I don’t want to repeat my mistakes, and I know that you don’t either._

“Mistakes? _Mistakes?_ I’d say I was _right_ to work on my own,” Miu retorts with her nose upturned, “All of our classmates were either idiots, cult leaders, or that one incest-freak!”

 _Hey! Not nice!_ Kaede warns. Miu squeals in shame, _We’re going to take a few deep breaths, get changed out of these clothes, and go meet the others. I’m not sure where Shuichi and Rantaro went, but I’m sure they’ve already told everybody about the banner situation, so we can’t freak them out any more. That means no snitching on Tenko._

“But--”

 _If you’re so worried, then go ask Tenko about it. Or Himiko. Take your pick,_ Kaede orders firmly, _But we’re… Let’s just be calm. Let’s be… calm._

It was beginning to appear as if Kaede was trying to calm herself down rather than Miu. She was signing this plan out loud, visualising how she is going to continue throughout the day, her narrowed eyes barely focused on Miu. She folds her hands on the desk again, signalling she has finished talking, her gaze falling onto Miu’s laptop. 

The strawberry blonde finds herself involuntarily taking Kaede’s advice. She takes a deep breath. Her rather loud example of proper breathing technique seemed to reach Kaede, who echoes her deep exhale. The situation they found themselves was horridly familiar. No communication with the outside. Locked in a secluded area with total strangers. A bounty for death and consequences for not appeasing it. A timer that was slowly but surely ticking down.

Oh, god. They’ve already wasted half of the day. It’s lunchtime now, and nobody has reached the outside yet. The timer ends at the end of the day. Was that midnight? Will the timer end at curfew? 11 o’clock? What happens then? _What happens then?_

She’s not sure how the hell it happened, but Miu must have unconsciously reached over and wrapped her arms around Kaede’s shoulders. She wasn’t sure if it was out of desperation to be held, or to comfort her friend. But either way, Miu was hugging Kaede.

If the former pianist had more to say, it went by unseen.

-=+=-

Himiko couldn’t say she liked Miu all that much, but it was very easy to tell when she was absent.

The class of Season 53 was unusually quiet. The table Himiko sat at was actually being civil for once. Lunch started in the dining hall exactly when it was supposed to start, 12:00 sharp, and each class had taken a chair around their designated round table. The redhead expected Miu and Kokichi to have started a food fight by now.

Himiko was slightly less worried about their absence considering how not one, but five people were missing from her class: Rantaro, Miu, Kaede, Shuichi, and Kokichi. They all must be in the same place, all of them lost or incredibly late to lunch together. Their empty chairs sat lamely in between Himiko and Ryoma. Tenko resides to the left of the redhead, and Angie is the next seat over from Tenko. Korekiyo sits as far away from the trio as he could possibly muster while still residing at the same table. He’s writing again. It’s that same illegible code.

“Could you pass the water, Kirumi?” Maki asks in between bites of her lunch, arm extended for the jug of water near the opposite end of the table.

Kirumi nods politely, grabbing the jug of water and passing it to Gonta, who then passed it shakily to the brunette. Water splashes inelegantly onto the tablecloth. The kids anxiously try to hide it with the complimentary baskets of bread. There were members of the Future Foundation who were hovering near the back of the dining room, a few of them loitering around tables and making mental notes of anything suspicious. Season 53’s table was placed about two tables away from the microphone they had set up, meaning that if the Future Foundation stared at the group for too long they would be able to notice everybody’s tense and fidgety behavior. Even Makoto, who was running over a checklist of things he needed to tell everybody, was beginning to glance over at them with concern. 

“Still nervous, are we?” Kirumi asks, not necessarily to one person in particular.

“...Well,” Angie replies, with a sarcastic gesture to the scene around her.

“Sorry,” Gonta apologizes, using his napkin to dab the stains out, “Gonta sorry about the water.”

“It’s alright, Gonta. It will dry,” Kirumi excuses.

Himiko nods along, “Yeah. At least it wasn’t juice, or something. Then it’d be all sticky…”

The class falls into silence. Himiko initially enjoyed the silence, revelled in the quiet of the moment, but after she grabbed her meal she realized it was beginning to grow annoying. Nothing that the buffet table offered necessarily appealed to her, so she was left to pick queasily at her fried rice while she waited for things to happen. Her friends were either shoving food into their mouths to avoid conversation, or staring at their measly plate of food with undesired expressions. 

“Maybe we should discuss what we found out,” Ryoma suggests, drinking his water incredibly delicately, “...Mainly ‘cuz I barely know anything.”

The class nods in agreement and scoot their chairs inward, intrigued by the idea of conversation instead of awkward silence.

“All of the ballrooms are locked except the Black Rose,” Maki immediately answers, “The Iris Ballroom has the weapons, but it’s behind an electronic lock for now.”

“There are electronic locks everywhere!! It’s over by the front doors, and--” Tenko begins rather loudly, but quickly hushes once Himiko lightly taps her hand. People were looking over at them with their eyebrows furrowed, scowling at the rowdy teenagers, “And they’re all being controlled by an ‘outside source’, apparently. The doors are all Invinci-Glass, as well!!”

Kaito finishes a short yawn, reaching over for a bread roll, “A ton of hotel rooms locked for about twenty minutes. It kinda forced people to group up into certain rooms, but, uh… I don’t think much came out of--”

The last syllable of his sentence is dragged out by the sudden interruption of a new guest taking the seat next to Himiko. Sakine has walked up rather casually, plopping herself into a chair and grabbing for the jug of water as if she was there the entire time. The majority of the class slowly looked towards her with wary and suspicious glances, the entire table silencing as she continued to shovel the food that was on her plate into her mouth. The group flickered their gazes over at other people as if asking if anybody knew who Sakine was. Himiko awkwardly avoids eye contact, shuffling to her left so it appeared as if they weren’t associated.

After a solid minute of staring at the Ultimate Chess Player as she ate food, Kirumi finally clears her throat. 

“Pardon, are you at the right table?” she asks hesitantly.

Sakine shrugs, “Nah. Don’t worry about it, though! I’m totally besties with Koko.”

If the nickname wasn’t enough, Sakine wraps her arm around Himiko’s shoulders, shaking her gently before her arm returns to her lap. All of the attention suddenly falls on the redhead, who was now being accused of inviting this random girl to their table.

“U-Uh…. I guess…” Himiko mutters, shrinking in on herself. 

Sakine beams at the group, her smile sharp and wide, “Sakine Hujomon, BTW. Ultimate Chess Player, or whatever,” she glances back and forth between Angie, Himiko and Ryoma, acknowledging their heights with an amused exhale, “Damn, you guys are all toddlers! I’m, like, basically your mom now.”

Maki raises an eyebrow, “You are two years older than us. Maximum.”

“You’re grounded,” Sakine replies in monotone, before chugging her tall glass of water.

Both Angie and Tenko lean forward, analyzing the new girl for anything that appeared too dangerous or out of place, squinting at the place her nametag should have been. The chess player wasn’t returning this eye contact. She was instead turned towards the front of the dining room, where the Future Foundation was beginning to assemble around the microphone. Byakuya was standing stiffly near Makoto, glaring daggers directly into Sakine’s skull, very openly malicious. Himiko knew Sakine wasn’t supposed to be at that table, but he was treating it like sitting down in that specific chair was the worst possible thing the brunette could have done. 

Sakine winks slyly back at him, adjusting her mask back over her face as the class of Season 53 resume their conversation. 

“Kaede and them were supposed to be on the roof,” Kaito continues, “Haven’t heard much, so I’m assuming it didn’t go well.”

Maki nods, “A solid assumption.”

“Good to know we’ve got nothing going for us…” Himiko sighs drearily. Tenko purses her lips in sympathy, rubbing the redhead’s shoulder. The former magician pats her hand gratefully.

“...Their onigiri is good.”

“Oh, that just makes up for everything,” Ryoma quips sarcastically, setting his drink down on the counter, “Really ties together this whole experience.”

The group jokingly nod their heads, murmuring in sardonic agreement and softly chuckling to each other. The dining room ripples with their energy, suddenly much brighter and lively. Tranquil music played freely in the background, setting a very polite scene of participants mousily pecking at their plates and communicating with their class, for the first time in a while for quite a lot of them. Tension didn’t seem all that high. Himiko still can’t feel hungry enough to eat any more food, though. She sits and plays with Tenko’s hair. It’s been growing out.

Makoto takes advantage of the lighter atmosphere and immediately grabs at it, shuffling over towards the microphone and tapping it as if he was about to host a game show. The room sizzles to a fond silence.

“Long time no see!” he begins with a friendly smile. The crowd laughs softly, “Um… I hope everybody is enjoying their lunch, but if I could have just a moment of your time to announce a few things, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you,” he clears his throat, turning over a page in his notepad, “Um… I’ll start off with saying that we understand the electronic locks a little more clearly now, which means dismantling them is going to become much easier! We’re making very quick progress, and should have them unlocked in an hour or so.”

Well, it’s better than tomorrow, Himiko supposes. She could tolerate another hour if she got to leave after that. She trusted Makoto, and she trusted these Ultimates. 

A few of her classmates clearly weren’t paying attention, most likely already understanding everything they needed to know and instead focusing on their lunch. Gonta and Ryoma were whispering to each other, but both of them were being too silent for the other to completely understand, so every once in a while one of them announces, “What?” a little too loudly. Kaito was on his phone, probably taking notes on the announcement, his gaze flickering from Makoto, to his cellphone, and to Maki. Sakine was swallowing everything on her plate in one bite, as if the tension of the situation they were in meant absolutely nothing to her.

“That being said, while the electronic locks still aren’t working, we are going to have to continue with the events planned,” a few people groan audibly, and the crowd murmurs in general disappointment, “That means if you have a booth you need to set up, or an event you need to host, it is still mandatory for you to do. But those should be fun! There are a ton of people here who would love to try new things! So while we get this situation under control, all events are going to continue as normal.”

Kaito shoots his hand in the air. Makoto notices this and pauses for a moment, before continuing with his announcement with an apologetic gesture. A Future Foundation member waves dismissively in Kaito’s direction, alerting the teenager that all questions will be answered at the end of the speech. The former astronaut lowers his hand with furrowed eyebrows.

“I know tensions are rather high right now, but I can promise you everything will be okay. Scouts honor,” he jokes playfully, “We’re already discussing with Danganronpa Officials to dismiss this convention as soon as the electronic locks are disabled, so enjoy the events while you can.”

The doors to the dining hall burst open. A few of Himiko’s classmates turn to face them, but other than a few scattered participants who were easily distracted from the noise, not much focus is placed on the new entrees. 

Shuichi stands at the doors, eyes wide and terrified.

His sweater was absolutely covered in black paint. Black paint seems to be a recurring theme between the group of people he brought with him, splashes of the medium scattered across clothing articles and on their fingers. Rantaro and Kokichi emerge from behind the panicked raven-haired teenager, the former much more visibly alarmed. A dark expression looms over Rantaro’s features as he searches for his class, counting the tables and checking for people he could talk to. Kokichi, his expression as chirpy and cheerful as ever, was the first to lock eyes with his class. The first to lock eyes with Himiko. The redhead squints in concern, mouthing a question about why a massive splotch of black paint covered his right eye.

Kokichi opens his mouth as if he was about to scream. Rantaro notices this and slaps his own hand over the purple teenager’s mouth, whispering sharply to him while anxiously gesturing to the crowd of disinterested people. As they commune rather harshly to each other, Shuichi shuffles along the wall rapidly, completely ignoring his class’s table as he scampers towards the closest Future Foundation member he could find. His facial expression implied complete severity, his shoulders rising up and down as he pants, presumably because he had sprinted straight to the dining hall. Rantaro releases Kokichi and glides to join the former detective, while the purple teenager skips over towards the table.

Kokichi’s smile reaches up to his ears, strained beyond what should be humanly possible. His right eye twitches with repressed anger, his movements sharp and almost frantic looking as he reaches the table. 

Sakine notices how he was making a beeline directly towards the chair she sat in, right next to Himiko, and nonchalantly slides one chair to her right. Kokichi takes her seat, strained expression still tight on his face, and slams his palms against the table. Wordlessly, he reaches fiercely for the pot of tea and begins pouring himself a cup, his entire body practically vibrating. 

“All hotel rooms seem to have been unlocked, so if you need to grab anything from your room you are free to do so...” if Makoto noticed Shuichi and crew entering, he barely lifted his gaze to acknowledge it. He continues to speak as Shuichi and Rantaro worriedly explain…. _something_ troublesome to the Future Foundation member leaning against the right wall.

Kokichi finishes tensely pouring himself a cup of tea and grabs at the tiny silver pot. He plops himself sharply into his chair and begins pouring the sugar directly into his cup, his eyes focused intently on drilling holes into the white tablecloth. His smile does not move.

Himiko grabs at her napkin, dipping it inelegantly into her glass of water and moving to wipe the black paint off of Kokichi’s eyelids.

“Himiko, that might stain the--” Kirumi begins to warn. Himiko pauses and allows the taller girl to spend a moment to deliberate. The sandy blonde purses her lips before leaning back from the situation with an enabling wave, “Nevermind. Go ahead.”

Himiko immediately begins wiping the paint away. Kirumi was right. It stains the napkin almost immediately. Kokichi acts as if he doesn’t notice Himiko trying to clear the paint from his eye. He remains completely frozen, the sugar still pouring directly into his cup of tea.

“Um… is Kokichi okay?” Gonta asks the purple teenager worriedly, facial expression soft with concern.

Gonta seemed to be the last person Kokichi wanted to hear from, but the boy still returns with a chirpy, “Yep! I’ve never felt better, honestly. I _love_ telling the truth, and I love _all_ of my friends!” his gaze falls back down to the tablecloth, eyes darkening as he grits a much quieter, “Miu Iruma especially.”

“Ssh,” Kaito shushes haphazardly, eyes never rising from the excessive note-taking on his phone.

Himiko lifts the napkin from Kokichi’s face and stares at the mess she’s created. The paint was coming off, if slowly, but had to be scrubbed a lot more harshly if it were to be removed entirely. The napkin was definitely ruined. Himiko will hide it somewhere and pretend she had never touched it later.

“Where are Shuichi and Rantaro going?” Angie asks Kokichi in a whisper, “What’s he saying?”

The former supreme leader doesn’t answer. Instead, he reaches over and grabs a bread roll from the center of the table, his right hand still pouring sugar directly into his tea. Himiko scrunches her nose at the now incredibly sweet beverage, her nose twitching in confusion. 

“Ew,” it’s Sakine that makes the first move to ask Kokichi what he was doing, her expression unconcerned and cool, “What’s up with you, little man?”

Kokichi snaps his head so quickly towards her that Himiko could have sworn she heard his neck snap. Sugar is still pouring into his tea, a pile beginning to peak out from the liquid. 

“Hi!” he begins, his words chipped and his smile acidic, “Who the fuck are you!”

The entire table hisses at him to mind his language, to be more polite. Sakine shows almost no reaction to his rather vulgar introduction. In fact she looked rather amused by it, if anything. The right side of her lips rose in a cool smirk, her right hand extended.

“Sakine Hujomon, Ultimate Chess Player,” she introduces, her voice smooth and icy.

Kokichi accepts her hand, shaking it. The pair stared directly at each other, eye contact unwavering, as if both of them were analysing the other person at the exact same time. Their smiles are frozen in place, their expressions fixed and stiff on their faces. Only their arms were moving. 

Kokichi’s head finally tilts to the side, his hand still shaking Sakine’s.

“Are you sure about that?” he asks. 

The handshake does not stop. Sakine’s smile widens, her expression growing much less readable. The corners of her eyes crinkle in an almost false sense of delight.

“...I can tell that we’re gonna get along just fine, Kokichi,” she replies through her teeth, dropping her hand back onto her lap.

Ignoring that rather concerning encounter, Himiko’s attention diverted towards Shuichi and Rantaro. The two teens seemed to have finished explaining whatever it was they needed to explain to the Future Foundation member, who was now guiding them upwards towards the microphone. He stops the two boys right next to Kyoko, who had been gingerly sipping on a tea and listening to her boyfriend make his speech. The Future Foundation member repeats what Shuichi and Rantaro had told him. Kyoko nods firmly and marches over towards Makoto.

“It would be greatly appreciated if you could assist in cleaning up your mess after lunch-- Oh, excuse me for a moment,” Makoto stops talking as soon as Kyoko taps him on the shoulder, turning away from the crowd and blocking the microphone with his hand.

The room takes his distraction as an invitation to talk again. Now holding the knowledge that talking freely is allowed, the class of Season 53 all turn to Kokichi and swarm him with questions like a flock of seagulls. Asking if he was okay, asking why there was paint all over his face, asking what Shuichi and Rantaro looked so worried about. Kokichi doesn’t reply to any of them. It seems his conversation with Sakine was the last conversation he was willing to engage in. His body language and demeanor seemed all around jostled, almost furious. If his previous comment said anything, it was definitely something to do with Miu. And Himiko wouldn’t be surprised. A polite conversation between them seemed almost entirely impossible.

The only one who didn't bother to ask him anything was Himiko, who was too busy staring at the Ultimate Hope as he talked quietly with Kyoko. His expression was slowly falling, a hand over his mouth initially out of curiosity but eventually out of shock. He was nodding along to whatever Kyoko was telling him, eyes widening as he processed the information. After a solid minute of nodding and not saying anything, he very discreetly waves for the Future Foundation member to escort the frazzled Shuichi and Rantaro out of the room. The two teenagers initially disagree with this request, pointing at their class and insisting that they need to take their seats at their assigned table, but are hastily removed from the room before anything could come from it.

Makoto spares a nervous glance over at Himiko’s table. One of clear concern. Kyoko notices this and begins speaking softly again, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. He nods and uncovers the microphone.

“Sorry about that,” he laughs nervously, once more silenting the room, “Just a behind-the-scenes complication. Nothing to worry about!”

Kokichi flips himself around, in time to notice Shuichi and Rantaro being escorted through the dining hall doors. The Future Foundation member guiding them stops the two teenagers directly outside of the exit and begins asking more skittish questions, gestures wild and sporadic. Kokichi’s smile drops as the door closes, leaving his two friends outside. 

Himiko notices perhaps a minute after they're gone that Miu and Kaede still weren’t here. Everything felt tense, like everybody in the room knew something that she didn’t. Kokichi sits back in his chair and glares at the Ultimate Hope, as if he had just made a new enemy.

“Everything is okay!” Makoto completes his announcement, flipping his notebook closed with a hopeful smile. There’s clear perspiration beginning to bead on his forehead. Kyoko is stiff behind him, ordering for people to check the roof, for some reason, “Everything is… going to be just fine!”


	12. we can make it if we try, just the two of us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> uh oh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw dead body

“Alright, everybody! Everyone have their starting notes?” at Sayaka’s question, the small choir hums in agreement, “Great! We’ll begin after the four count. Altos, make sure you project, alright? And a one! And a two! A one, two, three, four--!”

What follows is perhaps the most clamorous noise Himiko has ever heard in her entire life: a sea of off-key participants yelling at the same time, high notes screeching through the ceiling while the low notes grumbled importunately into the ground. Himiko sings the soprano line softly, one of the only people in her group that was on-key, while everybody else sang loudly and with little accuracy to the pitch. Angie’s voice actually sounded quite lovely, but she just couldn’t seem to find the right note at times. Kirumi was trying her best, but her singing was hardly Aguilarian. Kokichi was purposefully singing the worst possible note he could muster just so the final result would sound dissonant and atonal. 

Sayaka frantically waves the choir to a stop. There’s a long beat of silence as she stands, eyes closed and lips pursed into a thin line. After a moment passes, she inhales loudly, her smile returning as she claps once.

“Okay, that’s all the time we have,” she dismisses quickly, “This was so much fun! I hope to see you guys at the Talent Swap!” her glaze flickers over towards Kokichi, “...Some of you.”

The choir dismantles with gestures of gratitude towards their instructor, waving Sayaka goodbye as she warmly smiles back. The class had gone on for a rather short thirty minutes, enough time for the Ultimate Pop Sensation to teach a group of around fifteen people a short folk song. The aim of the class was to provide an example of what Sayaka was planning to create during the Talent Swap: a team of people with acceptable vocal pitch who could maintain a key for an entire song. As she isn’t able to participate in this choir, as her talent revolves around singing, she can only hope somebody from the class had enough musical talent to host the choir themselves. Looking around at the people who had participated, with all of them practically clueless when it comes to music, it seemed that this was the choir’s last performance.

This class was not the first event that Himiko participated in. At first her entire class had agreed to stick together and had attended Nekomaru’s booth, like Akane had suggested Himiko and her girlfriend do. The redhead found out fairly quickly that her tiny structure and complete lack of strength would cause her immense trouble while sparring, as did many others in her class. They left Gonta, Maki, Kaito, and Tenko behind while they searched for other things to distract themselves, splitting the group up as quickly as they had come together. Himiko spent quite a bit floating past booths before she finally settled in the backstage area of the Black Rose Ballroom, where Sayaka welcomed her fondly. 

An hour had passed. The electronic locks should have been dismantled by now, according to Makoto’s timetable. 

Kokichi had been trailing after Himiko the entire time, skipping buoyantly behind her and making his usual facetious quips. Himiko had suggested he head back up to his room and take a shower, or at least find a wet wipe so he could wipe the rest of the black paint off of his face. He had refused, instead attaching himself to her arm like a magnet. He was angry. Himiko realized he was angry about twenty minutes after he started ranting. He bitched about Miu the entire way to the choir, his ranting becoming the accompaniment to Himiko’s journey. He explained the entire argument they had just had, the communication exercise that Kaede had “forced him to try”, and how Miu had been the one to throw paint into his eyes. Himiko wasn’t as great at detecting when he was lying or telling the truth, so she took the conversation with a grain of salt.

Himiko had tried to ask about Shuichi and Rantaro, but Kokichi always managed to widdle himself out of answering. He collected the information, stored it in his brain, and refused to elaborate.

Shuichi and Rantaro did not make another appearance in the dining hall. Rantaro had sent them a text as they were packing up to leave, a neutral, “we’re talking with FF in administration”, and nothing more. Seconds after the text was sent, Byakuya receives a message of his own and exits the room. Moments later, Sakine stands up and leaves the hall, as well. Presumably to the same location. 

The lack of information was getting increasingly annoying for Himiko. Everybody seemed to know something, everybody seemed to understand the situation much faster than she could. It just didn’t seem fair at all for these people to be so vague while around her. She stewed over it as she collected music sheets, nose scrunched in deep thought while the rest of her group assisted Sayaka in packing up her equipment. A few others also stay behind, including Leon from the first season.

Sayaka passes by him as he folds a music stand, “Pitchy. Not your best work today.”

Leon smirks playfully, throwing his next sentence over his shoulder, “Intentional! I’m trying to sabotage the competition.”

“You do that without trying,” she teases, giggles sneaking through.

“Snake,” he jabs.

“Manwhore,” she replies just as quickly.

Leon rolls up a stack of music sheets and wacks her jokingly in the shoulder. Sayaka snickers and swats him away, gripping a music stand in each hand and mockingly positioning them for attack. The pair laugh at each other as they exit the backstage.

Kokichi stares at them with his head tilted to the side. The rest of the class continue to pile chairs and stack sheets as he stands blankly, the gears turning in his head as he observes the pair from a distance. Angie collects the paper from off the floor and hands it to Kirumi. The sandy blonde wheels after her, giggling and poking fun at their own singing voices. Himiko started cleaning up, lost in her own world, but got distracted by Kokichi’s silence. She glides over to his side.

“Weirdos!” he declares after a solid beat, acknowledging Himiko’s presence, “Didn’t he kill her? That’s so weird. What a weird bunch of weirdos.”

“Nyeh…. Don’t get all jealous because they can hold a conversation without throwing paint at each other…” Himiko smirks back.

“I didn’t throw paint! I didn’t throw anything!” Kokichi replies childishly back, arms crossed with a pout, “I was attacked by the loyalists! It was a massacre!! A bloody, bloody massacre!!”

Himiko rolls her eyes, “You weren’t _attacked,_ you just made her angry…”

Kokichi’s smile strains slightly, “Agree to disagree, sweetheart.”

“Unless you _were_ attacked. It would be really great if you could, y’know, actually tell me what happened…” even though she was heavily implying that he should spill the beans on the secret information he knows, Kokichi does not give Himiko another word, “Kokiiicchhhiiiii, come onnnn!!”

“My lips are zipped!” he shrugs, “I’ve been sworn to secrecy! If I told you, I would have to kill you.”

“So there _is_ something!!” Himiko gasps. Kokichi smirks cheekily, having intentionally spilled this information, “Tell me! Don’t be such a… such a… such a _butthead!”_

Kokichi gasps as if Himiko had just offended him greatly, slapping a dramatic hand on his heart, “Butthead!? How _dare_ you. This relationship is over. I’m sending you the divorce papers _tonight.”_

Himiko huffs, placing the last chair on the stack, “Fine.”

Kokichi stares blankly as the redhead irritatedly marches around the backstage area, her nose scrunched in both confusion and newfound disdain for not being able to understand. Things were never going to fall simply into her hands. She should have expected that by now. She was never the type to search for the information herself, and was instead the kind of character to let things happen around her. Maybe this was why Shuichi was the main character, because he actively searched for clues and information to proceed in his adventure. If Himiko was so desperate to know things, then maybe she should search for them herself.

Kokichi didn’t seem like a reliable source of information. As much as Himiko loved him, he always had his own agenda that seemed to interfere with his truths. Tenko didn’t seem to know what was going on, and if she did she would have told Himiko already. Shuichi was gone, Maki and Kaito were probably just as clueless, Angie was slowly piecing things together but seemed more focused on distracting herself… It certainly felt like Himiko was on her own. Unless she could suddenly make friends with someone like Miu, who was apparently conducting her own search. Or Gonta, who was making friends with a lot of the Future Foundation members.

Or Korekiyo.

Angie and Kirumi finish their work and wave the pair goodbye. The Ultimate Cross-Stitcher was hosting a tiny class, and the two of them wanted to check it out before it was over. The backstage was almost entirely empty, save for the scattered participants walking in and out to grab extra instruments or equipment.

“I’ll explain everything I know, okay? You got me, officer!” Kokichi spits rather unexpectedly, as soon as Angie and Kirumi leave the room, “This torment is killlliinnnnggg meeeee!”

Himiko raises an eyebrow at him, before jumping at the teenager with her pinky finger extended, “Pinky promise? Pinky promise you’ll tell me the truth?”

“Himiko! I didn’t know you were five years old!” he exclaims. 

Himiko scrunches her face at him, holding her finger out much more intensely, “Do you not trust Kirumi and Angie? Is that why you waited for everyone to leave?”

“...I didn’t want to freak everybody out,” he answers, before quickly adding, “Nuclear war would terrify the average person. But whatever! Pinky promise.”

Kokichi latches onto her pinky finger with his own, shaking her entire arm up and down once with a serious hum. After a solid handshake, Kokichi grabs Himiko by the shoulders and plops the two of them on the ground, sitting criss cross on the floor while participants stare at them with odd expressions. The pair ignore the stack of chairs behind them.

“I don’t think this convention is as safe as Makoto is trying to convince everybody it is,” Kokichi finally tells her, his smile much more relaxed as he drifts his arms down to his lap.

Himiko narrows her eyes, leaning forward in a whisper, “Wh-What do you mean?”

“Just got shot at,” he pauses to flash Himiko a sarcastic peace sign, “Really fun! Life changing.”

Himiko’s facial expression immediately drops. She was never the most emotive person, especially compared to her more dramatic and expressive friends, but she still found her mouth practically dropping to the floor. She was awful at telling if Kokichi was yanking at her chain or not, but something deep in her gut was hissing that he was telling the truth. A heavy feeling begins sinking deep into her stomach, a vile dread that glued her to the floor.

“Hold on-- Y-You got _shot_ at!?” she exclaims, voice hushed as to not alarm the sparse participants floating in and out of the backstage area.

“Shot at with _missiles!!”_ Kokichi beams, gestures grand and wild, “From all sides!! From the watchtowers out the back!!”

“Wait… Are you being serious? Be serious,” Himiko demands.

“Okie dokie! I was lying,” he admits with a shrug. Himiko rolls her eyes, sighing in slight relief, “We actually got shot at with guns. Same thing!”

Himiko stammers, releasing a distressed gargle from the back of her throat, “That is not-- That isn’t the same thing at all!! Holy crap, is everyone okay!?”

“We tried to message the outside world… but alas, the rebels must face yet another day in captivity,” he was quickening his pace, his words rushed yet theatrical at the same time, “Millions dead. Thousands taken hostage!!” 

Himiko can’t understand him. No matter how hard she tries to, she just can’t understand him.

“Kokichi… You know I don’t get it,” she says slowly, eyes closed in some attempt to process the information, “Can you please just--”

Suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, Sakine enters the backstage area and interrupts the redhead with a chipper call of, “Hey, little man! Come with me for a sec, yeah? I gotta talk to you.”

“Okie dokie, Sakine!!” Kokichi immediately agrees, pushing himself off the ground and skipping over towards the chess player.

Himiko stammers, staring at the place where Kokichi once was, blinking repeatedly and twitching her nose in complete confusion. He was such a confusing, unreadable person. So much so that it left her frozen where she was, absolutely bewildered with the sudden influx of severity. It was as if the situation came crashing down on her once more, as if any attempt to numb herself from this convention was crushed under his fingers and thrown out the window. It suddenly felt as if her windpipes were closing, like breathing was becoming much harder. Overwhelming. The information was overwhelming.

“Wh-- _Kokichi!!”_ Himiko barks, “Y-You can’t just drop information like that and leave in the middle of the conversation!!”

“I’m intentionally leaving it vague so you have to endure a painstaking journey to find the missing pieces!!” Kokichi yells over his shoulder, “Besides! My new best friend, Sakine, is so much more interesting than you!!”

Sakine shrugs apologetically, but it’s obvious she doesn’t care that much about interrupting.

Himiko droops from where she sits, sulking on the floor over having to locate and find the information herself. What could she even do? The roof seemed incredibly dangerous now. Tenko was too busy sparring with one of the buffest people Himiko has ever met. Nobody seemed to be at her disposal to assist her, or at least nobody that wouldn’t freak out about the thought of death due to past experiences.

“Himiko! Hey! Hey, Himiko!” Kokichi calls, noticing the girl’s distress and quickly making one last remark before he exited with the chess player. He forms a heart with his hands, puckering his lips mockingly, “I love you.”

“Cool.” Himiko deadpans.

Kokichi and Sakine disappear. It’s quiet backstage. There’s echoes from the outside, of people chanting and singing as if nothing was wrong at all, but it’s quiet backstage. It gives Himiko enough time to reflect. To sit still as a sharp, icy chill runs up her spine. Everything was not fine. 

Information was limited, but so, _so_ overwhelming.

-=+=-

_“How much did you tell Koko?” she asks, voice almost rushed in implied severity, “Seriously, I can’t have all of this being revealed.”_

_The pair had ducked behind a corner, whispering to each other in the middle of an empty corridor. They have already finished half of their conversation. Most of the details have been elaborated on already, and it was clear the pair were ready to separate once more and pretend as if they didn’t know each other._

_“What do you take me for, a snitch? A tattle-tail?” he replies, “Come on, we’re besties now! You can trust me with everything!”_

_She’s leaning against her cane, however it feels more sarcastic now than it was practical, “I don’t think either of us could necessarily be labeled as trustworthy people, hun.”_

_“Why are you being so mean all of the sudden?” he pouts, lower lip wobbling insincerely, “WAAAAAHHH!!!! I’m being BULLIED!!”_

_She sighs, rolling her green eyes, “You must be a real hit with your class.”_

_“Oh, absolutely! Everybody loves me! All of them, 100%!”_

_“Eugh. Couldn’t be me,” she gags, “Just remember what I told you. Don’t tell anybody about the thing. The thing that I just told you about.”_

_“So vague… Perhaps you should explain it to me again, in excruciating detail.”_

_“I’ve predicted 524 timelines where somebody eavesdrops on this conversation,” it was an incredibly specific number. Almost horrifyingly specific, in fact, “I’m only taking precautions, boo! Don’t want any snitches, y’know?”_

_“524 timelines? Wow, Sakine--” he enunciates her name sharply, clarifying just who he was talking to for anybody that could possibly be listening, “--You’re even more of a nerd than I thought!”_

_“Eh. Could be more, but I’m still pretty high, soooo…..”_

_“Drugs?” he begins fake sobbing, “Sakiinneeeeee!! Where did we go wrrooooonnnngggg??”_

_Sakine’s face scrunches in disdain, her eyebrows furrowing immensely as she becomes unnaturally serious, “Cut the dramatics! God, you’re so extra sometimes. Remember what I told you, yeah?”_

_“That you’re gonna burn the entire place down if I tell anybody who you are? Hm… I think I forgot. Remind me again?”_

_“Whatever, little man. Be smart about this, yeah? You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.”_

_“I don’t think this is a deal as much as it’s a threat, but okie dokie!” Kokichi grabs her hand and shakes it once, “You’ve shaken my hand, so now we’re eternally bonded! Time to do absolutely everything together!!!”_

_Sakine purses her lips in disgust, recoiling her hand sharply, “No thaaaannksss… I’d rather be lonely.”_

_The rest of the conversation is filled with Kokichi’s ingenuine sobs. Sakine slinks away from the teenager, and he immediately snaps back to a blank expression, his crocodile tears wiped away in an instant. His face remains frozen in that hollow state as he shuffles back to where he had entered from, presumably to find one of his close confidants. Like Shuichi, perhaps, who was still in administration. Or Himiko, who had wordlessly exited the backstage area, eyes unfocused and mind clearly elsewhere._

_Korekiyo nods to himself, records important pieces of the conversation in his journal, and disappears before either of them could notice._

_-=+=-_

Himiko finds herself outside. The weather is nice. The pool looked like it would be warm if she were to jump in. Barely anybody was outside, almost all of them partaking in indoor events.

She’s frustrated. That emotion she can clearly identify. Congested anger is seeping through her veins and causing her to move involuntarily, a gust of energy sweeping through her feet and rushing her out the back of the hotel. She’s murmuring under her breath, swatting herself in the forehead in some attempt to grasp what was happening. The doors are locked. The glass is unbreakable. Curfew is at 11 at night. Thirty people need to die. Thirty people need to die before the day ends.

Messages to the outside are forbidden. At the cost of being shot at. Was that what “further consequences” meant? Death? Oh, _god,_ did it mean _death!?_

Had Himiko been running around in a daze, completely oblivious to people trying to kill her? She feels dumb. She feels ignorant. Ignorant and naive. She should have learned from the killing game, should have taken that experience and become aware of her surroundings. Should have become smarter, stronger, _better._ She should have been _better._ But now she’s stuck here, in a hotel _filled_ with past killing game participants, people who have learned and become paranoid and become stronger and smarter and angry and vengeful. People who have killed before and were willing to do it again to get out of this goddamn hotel. Himiko was too dumb to see all of the red flags-- No, actually. She _did_ see the red flags, but collected them in her hands and threw them off of a tall cliff.

She’s biting the bottom of her lip. Eventually she sticks her nails into her mouth, just so she had something else to bite that wouldn’t sting as badly.

Her feet were working faster than her brain. Maybe she was walking towards the first aid tent near the back. Maybe she wanted to check if anybody was hurt. It sounded reasonable enough in her brain. The dark green tent had closed itself off, curtains covering whatever was happening inside the rather tiny space and leaving it a mystery to anybody who was passing by. A large, pristine, white cement wall stood behind it, topped with a well-trimmed hedge of green. It was too tall for anybody to climb. 

And even if Himiko wanted to climb it, Kokichi made it clear there would be people to stop her.

She knows where she's going now. She’s definitely moving towards the first aid tent. There’s a sign over the entrance, a warning of “DO NOT ENTER -- EMERGENCY ONLY” on it. She marches past beach chairs, past the deep end of the pool, heading directly to the first aid tent. She wants information. She’s going to _receive_ information. She’s going to--

“Ah, Himiko. I have a question for you.”

It’s Korekiyo. It was almost funny, at that point. The universe really thought shoving Korekiyo into the picture during Himiko’s most vulnerable and distressed moments would be a funny joke. He appears from the shadows as if summoned by Himiko’s emotional torment, having blended into the dark almost perfectly with his moody color scheme and clothing. 

She doesn’t acknowledge him and continues to march onwards, “Not now, Korekiyo.”

“This may be important, and I believe you are the only person who--”

“Not now, Korekiyo,” Himiko repeats, words uncharacteristically sharp.

“It’s about Sakine. I am aware that you two are friends, yes?”

“No… we’re not,” Himiko answers, finally stopping to turn around. Her face looks tired and her eyebrows are furrowed, “I met her this morning…”

“...Well, regardless, you may just be the only person I am acquaintanced with who knows her,” the redhead’s nose twitches at the word ‘ _acquaintanced’_. She shouldn’t be talking with him. Did she not have an argument with herself about this an hour ago? She walked with Tenko, listened to her girlfriend’s worries about Korekiyo, and then came to the decision that she wasn’t to talk to this boy, “I have a few questions regarding--”

“I’m busy,” Himiko hastily excuses, head turning towards the first aid tent.

Korekiyo notices where her gaze keeps falling and slowly turns to face it as well. They spend a few seconds without eye contact, both of them analyzing the dark green hut, as if it was much to look at. Himiko was suddenly very determined to find out what was inside, was fixated on entering that first aid tent and discovering if anybody was hurt. Once she finds that out, she will know the severity of this situation. She will understand how serious these circumstances are once she discovers the severity of the injuries. That…. Makes sense, right? That was a reasonable, solid thing to do in these circumstances?

She can’t just run to the nearest person and ask if anybody got shot at. That would cause a mass panic, and what good would that do? It’s not like anybody could leave the premises. Sending everybody into a wild frenzy would only make the situation ten times worse. A mass panic was the exact kind of thing Makoto was trying to prevent, which means the only reasonable thing for Himiko to do was investigate in private. _Private_ private. Which means _no Korekiyo._

Despite what Himiko wants, Korekiyo seems to be holding his own investigation. One that was already deep into information that the redhead just wasn’t aware of. Korekiyo was an observer through and through, and would definitely be a lot of help if Himiko were to ask for it. Which she will _not._ Because that would be wrong to Tenko. And that would be wrong to Angie. Who, y’know, he had _murdered_ quite a bit ago.

“I can help you,” he offers. It’s perhaps the last thing Himiko wanted to hear, because she actually _needs_ his help, “...I’m assuming you want confirmation on whether anybody was hurt?”

 _Damn it, that’s exactly what she wanted,_ “...Yeah. I guess.”

“There are most likely two people in there. I believe one of them is the Ultimate Nurse from Season Two, while the other is less related to the medical field. They are the only people I’ve seen that have been allowed in there,” Korekiyo describes to the best of his ability, “With the two of them inside, it seems unlikely that you’ll be able to walk in without being detected.”

“...Well--” any form of objection quickly disintegrates into her mouth. He was right. She couldn’t say anything back because he was right, “Okay…. Well, I’m still gonna try. I’ll… go around the back, or something.”

“You’ll need a distraction.”

Himiko realizes pretty quickly that “distraction” meant “you’ll need _me_ specifically”. The redhead must have had this exact internal argument about thirty times today, the argument about whether or not she should be talking to Korekiyo and if she was even able to forgive him and blah, blah, blah. Korekiyo was beginning to appear so frequently throughout the day that Himiko was beginning to think that he was her only option. Like the universe was shoving this boy into view, tapping against her shoulder and repeatedly shouting “talk to him, talk to him, talk to him” into her ear.

Dang it. Dang it. _Dang it!_ Why him!? Why _her!?_ Why did things have to be like this!? Why was Danganronpa so… so _stupid!?_

Himiko stares at him for a little longer than she should have before replying with, “What do you want?”

“I only have a few questions about Sakine, and then I’ll be on my way,” Korekiyo answers.

“...I can’t be doing this. Talking to you,” Himiko blurts out, almost overlapping him, “Angie is my best friend, she wouldn’t want me to--”

“I understand. I promise you that I will not interfere with you or your friends after you answer my questions,” he swears, “I wouldn’t want to make anybody uncomfortable. And this information may be important to you, as well.”

Himiko gnaws at her bottom lip in deep thought. He wasn’t going to stick around. If Himiko wanted to enter this tent, she would need his distraction. All she had to do was answer his questions about Sakine, questions that would in no way be difficult for her to answer considering Himiko barely knows her. Shuichi was all about logical thinking over emotions during those horrid class trials, so shouldn’t Himiko follow in his lead? Be logical instead of petty and emotional? It was all so confusing.

_...But what Angie and Tenko don’t know won’t hurt them, right…?_

“Fine. Deal,” she agrees.

The corners of Korekiyo’s eyes crinkle, alerting Himiko that he was smiling, “Excellent. Now, how convincing is your fake scream?”

“...Um… pretty convincing, I guess?” in the middle of her answer, Korekiyo began to lower himself to the ground. Himiko narrows her eyes in confusion, hesitantly taking a few steps backwards, “Wh...What are you doing…?”

“Acting,” he lays there for a few seconds before he lifts his head up from the floor, “This is the part where you need to fake scream.”

Himiko’s head tilts to the side like a lost puppy, before it suddenly snaps back into place with the realization that this was the distraction. He was lying on the ground to cause a distraction-- a medical one, to be more precise. Himiko screams, fairly unconvincingly, but loud enough to alert the nurse and the other participant from inside the first aid tent. Korekiyo had been right. Two people were inside, guarding it.

The nurse that exits the tent is pale and meek, her dark purple hair short yet fairly unkempt and disorganized, as if she had been raking her hands through it. She had hastily thrown off a light blue medical apron and gloves before running outside to meet the teenagers, but Himiko very barely managed to notice the red color on both of them. Her eyes were a faint purple, her dress flowy and rather inconvenient for the task at hand. In her grip, a tiny first aid kit.

“I-Is everything alright?” she worriedly asks, rushing over towards Korekiyo, who was now lying still on the ground, “What-- What happened!?”

Himiko reads her nametag. _Ultimate Nurse, Mikan Tsumiki,_ “I was just… standing here… and he passed out all of the sudden, I don't know!!”

The participant behind her stays standing as Mikan kneels next to Korekiyo, flipping his “unconscious” body so he faces upwards. The nurse’s initially timid demeanor almost instantly flips off as soon as she sees his face, a much more serious and solemn expression flushing over her features. She feels his forehead and immediately asks for the other participant to run into the hotel and grab drinkable water. The tent was unoccupied. Mikan was busy, and the other participant was now gone.

Before Himiko has the chance to sneak into the first aid hut, Mikan asks, without looking away from Korekiyo, “Do you know of any existing medical problems? A-Any physical trauma from the simulator?”

“I dunno, I don’t know him that well…” Himiko admits rather honestly with a half-hearted shrug. Mikan hums worriedly, reaching forward to remove Korekiyo’s mask to allow for easier breathing, “No--! Uh, wait, he actually doesn’t like people touching that.”

Himiko wasn’t sure why she said that. In fact, she doesn’t know why she’s still there. She could have slinked past them a long time ago, now. Warning Mikan about the mask just felt like some internal second-nature, a weird instinct for her to have suddenly discovered. No matter how Himiko felt about doing the bare minimum, Mikan removes her hands from his face and instead begins to open the tiny first aid kit she had brought out with her.

Himiko takes one massive step backwards. Then another. After realizing Mikan was too focused to notice anybody sneaking away, she breaks into a full on sprint. Her footsteps are so light and tiny that she barely makes any sound as she patters towards the tent.

The next moments needed to happen quickly-- that Himiko knew quite well. She only had a few seconds to duck in, check if everything was alright, and duck out before Mikan discovered that Korekiyo was not in fact a raging narcoleptic who passed out in the middle of the pool yard. 

There was something so twistedly exhilarating about breaking the rules, some backwards sense of excitement buzzing through Himiko’s body as she stepped into the first aid tent. It wasn’t much to look at; The only thing of importance were the empty cots, the packs of first aid kits, and the divider that separates the half of the first aid tent that Himiko was in with the rest of it. The adrenaline is pumping through her body, making every movement sharp and much quicker than usual. It’s as if she’s switched to some unknown hyperdrive buried deep within her stomach, as if the sudden time limit given to her by Korekiyo and his fake fainting was kicking all five of her senses into full gear. Nobody seems to be injured from what she could see, so she pushes her luck and digs deeper. She rapidly pulls back the curtain divider.

Horrible mistake on her part. Himiko was never the perfect investigator, anyways. 

Because the man on the cot was most certainly dead.

It flashes before her eyes. She doesn’t give herself any time to process the dead man before she snaps the curtains closed again and spins herself around, marching directly out of the tent. The image of that participant rattles in her brain, whirring and hissing like a broken VHS tape, his lifeless eyes staring outwards and his skin sickly pale. The adrenaline was overpowering any form of disgust, any form of horror that might arrive from seeing a man with a fatal gunshot wound to his abdomen. Himiko finds herself walking directly out of the tent and away from the corpse, skin icy to the touch and her eyes glassy with fear. It was the participant from the Black Rose Ballroom. He had been shot at and hit, fatally. 

It confirms everything at once. The “further consequences” meant death. It meant being shot to _death._

She had wanted answers, right? Himiko seemed to be repeating that over and over in her brain, the thought unnerving and overwhelming the senses which had been so sensitive just seconds ago. She had wanted this? She had wanted these answers? Nothing seemed to be processing correctly, as if the information wouldn’t fit into her brain and instead yelled at her from a distance. She was trembling, but it didn’t feel like it was from shock. It felt like she had been doused in ice water, as if the outside was suddenly horridly cold and unbearable. She felt a prisoner in her own skin, a dreadful feeling of nausea hitting her abruptly and threatening to pull her to the floor. 

Himiko starts walking and doesn’t stop. The only alert she is able to give Korekiyo is a weak gesture to call off the charade. Korekiyo, who apparently can see through his eyelids, snaps awake and sits up sharply, frightening the poor nurse to no end.

“Ah. All better,” he tells Mikan, ignoring her help as he pushes himself off of the ground, “Must have been a dizzy spell. Thank you for your assistance.”

Mikan stammers, very clearly disturbed at how quickly he managed to recover, “U-Uh, you’re welcome? Um--”

He waves the nurse goodbye and begins following Himiko into the hotel. The redhead can barely sense him behind her. Everything seems to have gone blank. The hotel has merged into one ambiguous blob, her only sense of direction coming from pure muscle memory. The corpse is flashing through her mind more vividly now, like somebody was painting it in front of her while she stared at it dumbly. He must have been shot during the announcement for the convention. That first gunshot _had_ made contact. Everybody else in this hotel had _lied_ to Himiko, had convinced her nobody had been hurt, that nobody had been killed. Everything’s rushing at her so quickly now. It had been delayed before, but now it rushed at her so, _so_ quickly.

She’s walking with no purpose. She’s marching onwards with no destination. She got her answer, however poorly it was processed, but now she wasn’t sure what to do with it. Surely she should tell people? But, considering how everything was _real,_ how the threat and the text and the guns and the murder was so incredibly _real,_ then that means the thirty traitors are also real, right? That means anybody could be betraying her, even as she walks around the hotel without any purpose at all. She has a small group of people she could trust, but all of them were split up or with people or distracted, so what should she do? What should she _do?_

Somebody is _dead,_ and nobody seems to care. What should Himiko _do!?_

After a long period of silence, Himiko notices Korekiyo was still following her. He had been extending his arms whenever somebody tried to interact with her, as if creating a barrier around her while she paces around the hotel in a dazed panic. 

“The-- Oh, _god--”_ she’s speaking to Korekiyo, but her gaze is pressed directly forward. Her feet do not stop, keeping the conversation mobile, “He was dead. He was _dead,_ he--”

Korekiyo flinches from behind her, raising a hand to pause her, “Don’t-- I don’t want to know the details. I had only assumed it was a minor wound, I didn’t...”

His voice drifts as Himiko runs directly into a dead end, finding herself outside of the elevators. She knows better than to press random buttons and get herself lost in a massive hotel, so she ends up frozen, staring forward at the panel. Her entire face twitches and contorts with dark emotion, flashes and memories and horrid thoughts and rapid information attacking her after such a long delay. She once again resumes murmuring under her breath, silently exhaling everything that had happened up until that point, slamming her palm against her forehead when the answer wouldn’t come as quickly as she wanted it to.

Korekiyo stands, silent as always, before murmuring an apologetic, “...I am so sorry you had to witness--”

“What about Sakine? What do you want to know about her?” Himiko interrupts, words pointed and firm. She gestures frantically, as if trying to speed the interview up before Korekiyo even began to ask anything, “Ask me your questions. Make it quick, I need to-- I need to tell somebody--”

She needs to tell somebody there has been a death. Maybe she _should_ cause a mass panic. Maybe she should just completely disregard Makoto’s intentions, however good they may seem, and run into the nearest event hall screaming that a man had died. She’s not smart enough to figure this out, she’s too _dumb_ and too _weak_ and too _useless._ She needs somebody else to do it for her. She needs to hand this information to somebody who actually knew what to do with it, because Himiko can’t do it. She can’t do it, she _can’t do it._

She needs to give the responsibility of this information to somebody else. Somebody smarter than her, more capable. But who? But _who?_

“Well, now that… we’re aware of the severity of this situation…” Korekiyo hums, voice clearly strained with newfound distress, “...I believe the mastermind may be closer than we imagine.”

Himiko realizes with much disdain that the "smarter, more capable" person she had been asking for was, in fact, Korekiyo. Damn. The universe must _really_ hate her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 29/30


	13. you and me, we're not the same (i am a sinner, you are a saint)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> miu has a nice chat with the ultimate hope, and himiko finally seals an alliance

Miu should consider turning on a light. 

She’s been staring at her computer screen for maybe thirty-ish minutes now, eyes fixated on the harmful blue light as she mashed on keys, wet hair splayed down her back and chilling her skin. She had taken a shower thirty minutes ago-- an incredibly long one, in fact-- and then immediately returned to the desk to start working, throwing her soaking hair into a sloppy low bun and hunching over her computer. She spent five minutes waiting for K1-B0 to manually connect to her laptop’s internal system before realizing she should actually put on clothes that weren't a hotel towel. She sits in a pink tank top and grey sweatpants.

Kaede walked into the shower after Miu finished and has been in there ever since. The sound of muffled water in the background accompanies the strawberry blonde as she types and scribbles in her notes. It’s dark in the hotel room. The lamp was still on, but the lights were turned off. Something about the muted lighting was comforting, less overwhelming and more calm. Miu had spent almost the entirety of the shower just sitting on the floor and sobbing about the argument and the warning shots, so she was a lot more collected now. Her notes, while messy and borderline incoherent, were written with a cool head.

K1-B0 now blinked on her laptop screen, a pixelated version of them running across her desktop as she pulled up twenty different files at the same time. They spent frequent intervals of time sitting on her laptop’s dock, eyes blank as they calibrated, researching anything they could possibly find that hasn’t been locked behind a firewall.

“I still can’t believe he said that,” they admit sourly. Just because the pair were working doesn’t mean they couldn’t gossip, “It just felt… very overexaggerated.”

“Fuckin’ tell me about it!” the calmer atmosphere did nothing about Miu’s volume, however. She was yelling as if Kaede was also a part of the conversation, as if grasping for the attention of everybody in the hotel room, “Goddamn little midget just kept kicking me in dick while I was down!”

K1-B0’s eyebrow raises, “You were also in the wrong.”

Miu whimpers, hands recoiling over her chest, “Wh-- Oh, j-just drill it in deeper, why won’t you!?”

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to sound rude. But… you still insulted him back, if worse.”

“Hell yeah, I was worse! ‘Cuz he _deserved_ it!!” the strawberry blonde spits. Before she could continue, her nose involuntarily scrunches as if she had smelled something horrid. A dark memory flashes past her for a moment and her snarky demeanor fades, “Whatever. Let’s just-- Just drop it.”

“Got it. Sorry.”

Miu types a few more words into the program, gaze suddenly glued to her keyboard, “...Don’t apologize if you’re right.” 

K1-B0 nods, taking the advice. 

Miu rubs at her eyes, sighing dramatically as she continues to scavenge through the files she had stolen. Most of them that weren’t video feeds from random hallways within the hotel had taken the form of code. Now, Miu Iruma was a gorgeous girl genius, but even she had her limits. She could code-- much better than the average person, in fact-- but was a lot better working with the hands on elements of robotics such as design and construction. Miu has done coding before while working on K1-B0, but that was only minor fixes considering Danganronpa had already coded the robot themselves. The documents that stood in front of her would take days for her to decipher. She didn’t have days. She had (presuming that the day ended at 11) about ten hours.

She would never say that out loud, of course. She didn’t want to admit she needed help. Miu takes the knowledge she has and fakes it till she makes it. There’s a joke about faking it hidden somewhere in that sentiment but the strawberry blonde got too distracted to tell K1-B0. 

There’s a knock at the door. 

It shocks her at first, but that being said _every_ loud noise seems to startle her to some extent these days. She glares at the door as if the person behind it would be able to see her.

The knock repeats, “Is this Kaede and Miu’s room? It’s Makoto Naegi.”

Miu flashes a sarcastic glance over at K1-B0, mockingly gagging as the Ultimate Robot tilts their head in confusion. She ignores the Ultimate Hope, returning to the laptop to separate more files. Everything she can get her hands on is vague and relatively unimportant to the situation at hand.

Makoto knocks once more, “...Hello?”

K1-B0 stares at her, as if voicelessly telling Miu that opening the door for him would be the most respectful thing to do. Miu stares back, trying to keep her stance strong but only ending up shriveling and caving. She waves K1-B0 a blunt goodbye and hides their program, pushing herself begrudgingly off of her chair and away from her desk. She stands and thinks for a moment. _God,_ Miu doesn’t want to open the door. He’s gonna be all pissy and shit because she caused a massive argument on the roof and then didn’t show up to lunch. 

Makoto knocks again.

“I’m coming! I’m coming,” Miu calls out, “Jesus Christ.”

The running shower suddenly alerts her towards her roommate, and she quickly searches through a pile of Kaede’s clothing to give her. She grabs a comfortable outfit, walks to the bathroom, opens the door and chucks the pile of clothes at the former pianist, earning a flustered yip from the still-showering blonde. Miu closes the bathroom door as quickly as she opens it and stands contemplatively in front of the hotel room’s entrance. 

With a deep breath, Miu opens the door.

Makoto stands politely, two boxes of leftover lunch stacked in his hands. As soon as he notices the strawberry blonde he instantly begins smiling, as if he flipped the switch on his facial expression.

“Hi!” he greets, “Is it alright if I come in to talk?”

Miu wanted literally nothing less, “Kaede’s in the shower.”

“That’s alright! I actually wanted to speak with you a little more.”

 _Fuuuuuuucckkkkk,_ “...Okay.”

Miu opens the door more and gestures the man inside, closing it rather roughly behind him. She slumps back to her desk and plops herself in the chair, quickly closing her notebook and swiping anything incriminating off of her screen. Makoto stands at the entrance rather stiffly for a moment, the boxes still in his hands, before he glides over to meet Miu at her table.

“I heard you guys missed lunch, so I brought you both food, if that’s alright!” he smiles cheerily, placing the two boxes on the desk. Miu eyes them suspiciously, “I know this situation is pretty tense, but it’s still important to eat!”

The strawberry blonde stares at the man, biting back a long string of curse words before mumbling a cold, “...Jesus. Do you always treat people like they’re a fuckin’ six year old?”

Makoto blinks in shock, taken aback by the crass opening statement. His cheery demeanor fumbles as Miu turns once more to her computer, her eyebrows furrowed in visible discomfort and contempt. The Ultimate Hope’s smile twitches, and for a moment it looks like he was about to continue his long-winded speech with the exact same chipper disposition. It almost reminded Miu of somebody from her class. It almost reminded Miu of somebody she had just argued with an hour ago, of somebody she had just flung paint at.

But Makoto knew his facade wasn’t convincing. He tries to make his grin more genuine but ends up giving in and sighing. His smile drops into a neutral frown.

“You’re right,” he admits, stretching his jaw as if his smile had been hurting him, “You’re right, sorry. Sometimes I forget I do that, haha.”

Without asking, Makoto slumps into the stool next to the desk, suddenly looking very weary and fatigued. He slouches over with his elbows resting on his knees, rubbing at his eyes before sitting up seriously.

“I just wanted to ask you some questions,” he says, voice much more relaxed and unexceptionable, “You’ve been sneaking around quite a bit, and a few people are worried. Also… I understand that you got in an argument with another participant earlier? Um, Kokichi Ouma, if I’m right--?”

“So!? What’s it to ya, knob-dick!? You’re not my fuckin’ dad!” Miu snaps, provoked by the name and suddenly tense. She spends maybe a split second with her teeth gritted at the startled boy before she blinks, taking a step back from what she had just spat at him, “Wow. That, uh--”

“It’s all good! Really. I understand you can’t help it,” Makoto waves, chuckling meekly to himself. For the first time since they met, Miu actually can tell for certain that he was being sincere, “Trust me, I’ve met a bunch of people with… large personalities. That’s kind of a staple for Danganronpa.”

Miu hums, lips still pursed in slight annoyance. He wasn’t wrong, but there’s no way he’s met somebody this bold. There’s no way any other participant cussed him out as their introduction. She shifts uncomfortably in her chair, praying internally that Kaede finishes her shower a little quicker than the strawberry blonde had.

Makoto notices her fidgeting and smiles sympathetically, “...I know you’re probably tired of hearing me say everything is fine. But I really hope you know that we are trying everything we can to get you out of here,” he tilts his head forward in an almost paternal manner, eyebrow raised, “...That doesn’t mean you should take matters into your own hands.”

For the briefest of moments, Miu panics, thinking that he had found out about K1-B0 and the stolen documents hidden in the laptop right next to her. She unconsciously leans over her computer, shielding the device like it was her baby.

“W-What? What the hell did _I_ do?” she whines back, “I-I already got told off by Daddy Long Legs, I don’t need another fuckin’ lecture…”

“Daddy Long Legs…? Who is-- Ohhhhhh, _Byakuya,”_ Makoto suddenly realizes, before breaking into a fit of flippant giggles, “That’s a good one. Oh, man. I gotta start using that one,” he snorts unattractively, a habit that Miu also has. The former inventor raises both eyebrows, as if she wasn’t expecting any sort of imperfection from the man, “He couldn’t have been happy about that.”

Miu’s stomach starts to unclench as he laughs at her nickname, “...No. He, uh, was pretty uptight about it.”

“Sounds about right,” Makoto finishes chuckling, sighing inwardly, “He’s a good guy, though. Gotten a lot better outside of the simulator, anyways.”

“Sorry, what is this about? You ‘bouta tell me your life story, old man?” Miu interrogates, “Cuz unlike you, I’ve got years ahead of me that I don’t wanna waste.”

“I… I’m only 24….” Makoto replies, “But, uh, I did kinda have a point to all of this. I just wanted to ask about what happened on the roof? I heard things got… messy.”

Sure. You can call rekindling a petty, ruthless argument with her classmate messy. You could call her grabbing black paint and chucking in everybody’s faces messy. You could call her and her group of teenage friends being _shot at_ as a warning messy. 

Miu visibly sours. She’s smart enough (or maybe paranoid enough) to know that Makoto was trying to lower her guard so she would spill all of the information she knows. But there was a part of her that _wanted_ to. He was just that kinda guy. She felt like she could admit everything she has done in this hotel thus far, and he wouldn’t be angry with her. Miu felt like her secrets could be safe with the Ultimate Hope. She isn’t going to tell him, of course, but maybe when she finds a way out of this situation they could look back on her wrongdoings and laugh.

“Yeah. Sure,” she admits vaguely, “I’m guessing Shuichi and them snitched?”

Makoto tilts his head in confusion, “Hm? Shuichi and Rantaro told us about the… um, the warning shots. Nobody seems to be hurt, but I’m still a little worried about how you’re doing. Emotionally,” he shifts around in his stool as if scooting himself slightly away from the former inventor, “...I’ve been told by people in your class that you get quite paranoid. That might have led to you… maybe… sneaking around in areas you weren’t supposed to?”

Fuck, even her _class_ was turning on her? Like, damn! It’s true, but they didn’t have to tell Makoto! Now all the Ultimate Hope is gonna see is some psychotic chick snooping around where she shouldn’t be because she’s all nervous. It makes her appear suspicious and weak. No wonder why Makoto had to come up here and check up on her. Everybody here thinks she’s scared and pathetic, and everybody here thinks that she’ll snap at any moment. Everybody here thinks she’s paranoid and delusional, that she’ll be the first person to stab somebody in the back, that she’ll be the first person to kill someone. _Everybody_ here thinks she’s one of the traitors, which means that when it comes down to it and they have to choose thirty people she’ll be at the top of everybody’s list, and then--

“And that argument also worried a few people,” Makoto continues, as Miu stares off into the distance, in her own little world, “I heard paint was thrown. Not the most dangerous thing you could have done to him, but still.”

“You wouldn’t get it,” she practically mumbles, arms now folded over her chest, “It’s-- He _deserved_ it, you wouldn’t-- You wouldn’t understand unless--”

“Unless I was in your killing game?” he guesses, “...Yeah, it… Killing game grudges are never pretty. Especially so early on. But you guys only _just_ came from the game, I can promise you things get better with time.”

Miu scoffs, “Yeah, no fuckin’ way in hell am I gettin’ along with that shitstain.”

Makoto’s face once again twists with genuine sympathy, “...Hey, have you met Mondo Owada yet? Ultimate Biker Gang Leader?”

“No. And I don’t get what this has to do with--”

“Our class had a pretty similar situation. There was a, uh, pretty awful double kill in Chapter Three,” Makoto begins rubbing behind his neck casually, “Hifumi ended up killing Taka and then Celeste killed Hifumi-- Er, do you know who I’m talking about…?”

“I’ll manage,” Miu shrugs. She knew Celeste, but none of the other names rang any particular bells.

“Well, anyways, they woke up after the trial ended and I guess Hifumi, Taka, Mondo, and… Maybe Celeste? They were all in a room at one point, and--”

“And Taka got all pissy and threw a cow?” the strawberry blonde interrupts, “Good for him! He fuckin’ _deserves_ to be angry--”

“Oh, no, Taka wasn’t angry! In fact, he was probably one of the first people to forgive his killer, haha,” he stares past Miu for a second, like the scene was playing out in front of him, “...Now, _Mondo_ on the other hand… Oh, boy. He was really mad. He kept yelling and throwing things all the time. Wouldn’t let anybody forget it. Taka is his best friend, so seeing him being killed was… hard. Even after the whole ‘fiction’ thing got explained to them.”

Miu finds her facial expression softening. At first she had been sitting through the retelling with hardened exasperation, as if she was a pouty child forced to listen to her grandfather retell war stories, but her physicality involuntary began relaxing. The shower still ran in the background, a calming ambience underlying his story.

“And it definitely wasn’t easy, but eventually they realized that holding grudges didn’t do any of them any good. Besides, I’m pretty positive a lot of Mondo’s anger came from guilt. He was the Chapter Two blackened, you see. A lot of… directing his own self-hatred at other people,” Miu nodded along to his story, glance flickering to the floor. Makoto notices her beginning to shrink and quickly shifts forward encouragingly, “It got better, though! Trust me, you’ll learn to get used to your classmates.”

The former inventor doubted it. She hasn’t properly met Mondo _or_ Celeste, but she could pretty confidently say that there’s no way they held the same dynamic that Miu and Kokichi had. What, with one being entirely hotheaded and the other being a pathological liar? That dynamic was just too unique to copy. 

The story didn’t really help much. It wasn’t a huge convincer. Miu wasn’t about to flip her life around at the drop of a hat, all because Makoto told her “things get better eventually heehee”. It wasn’t even like he was forcing her to get along with Kokichi, or anything, only suggesting that their relationship would get better with time. Still, Miu rejected his attempt at steering her in the right direction, stubborn and incredibly adamant on the idea that Kokichi should be apologizing to _her._ Not the other way around. He was the bad guy here.

Eventually she’ll have repeated that statement so much that she convinces herself. Not today, though.

“...So, that’s it? That’s fucking _it?_ You came in here to tell me your class is all buddy-buddy now?” Miu asks after a long pause, “Dude. Way to rub it in…”

“Oh, I wasn’t--” Makoto stops himself, quickly returning back on track, “Anyways. Back to the point. You’re in good hands here, and I need to ask you not to interfere with people trying to work… I really don’t mean to be rude, I know you’re worried!”

It was a pretty fair call. She has already trespassed in the basement, stolen files off of their computers, fucked up their banner (which, to cut her some slack, was probably never going to go well in the first place), and stressed everybody out by chucking paint into people’s eyes. Asking for her to calm down so other people could work was reasonable in itself.

Miu disregards how sensible his argument was, however, “Well-- _Fuck yeah,_ I’m worried!! I-I just nearly got my ass handed to me back there!! Have you even told anybody about that!? You just gonna shove the fact that I got _shot at_ under the goddamn carpet and call it a night!?”

“No! No, not at all!” Makoto shakes his head, “We’re warning people to take the rules seriously, but we’re trying not to cause a panic. I-I don’t want everybody freaking out,” he locks eyes with the strawberry blonde, facial expression clearly showing dark worry, “You can never tell how people will react.”

The former inventor takes another long pause to exhale deeply, taking the last sentence straight to heart. Even Makoto, a character defined by seeing the good in everybody, was able to understand that this hotel was filled with ex-murderers and victims who have all reacted very vividly, _violently,_ to a threat before. Even the snarky teenage girl in front of him had devised and executed a plan to murder after being placed in a kill or be killed scenario. The other blonde in the hotel room had _also_ devised a murder (however unsuccessful), even if her plan was slightly more virtuous than sending an entire class of people to their death because it was “Miu’s duty as a genius inventor”. There was something so frightening about that fact, about the knowledge that _anybody,_ including herself, was capable of planning a murder.

Miu leans backwards in her chair, rocking against the headboard in unconscious dread, waiting for him to continue the conversation. Makoto wasn’t being excessively pushy, but was still clearly pausing in case she wanted to say anything. Patiently waiting in case she wanted to express any other worries she might have. 

“Alright,” he concludes with a warm smile, “I guess I’ll end things by telling you that Chihiro was really interested in the AI you were developing… K1-B0, wasn’t it? Chihiro had nothing but nice things to say! If you wanted to assist with the electronic locks, we would really appreciate somebody with your robotics knowledge helping!”

Miu blinks at the statement at first, not noticing that it was supposed to be a compliment towards her, before a cocky yet appreciative smile begins curling up her cheeks. 

“W-Well, _duh,_ of course you’d need my gorgeous girl brain if you have any hopes to get out of here!” she muses, swiping her hair over her shoulder. Makoto chuckles in amusement, “But, um-- Did he really say that?”

“Of course! He’s still super into programming, so I think he was really happy to talk to somebody else who knew what they were doing. I’ve tried my best, but it’s all too confusing,” Makoto admits sheepishly, pushing himself off of the stool and beginning to make his exit, “Anyways. Thanks for listening, Miu. And make sure you eat, alright? The food is free, so take advantage of it while you can.”

Miu looks over at the boxes of takeout with squinted eyes, but begrudgingly returns with, “...I guess.”

Makoto smiles. It’s real and more convincing, unlike the peppy tour guide shtick he was trying to pull off in front of everybody else.

“Let’s do our best, yeah?” he says with a thumbs up, turning towards the door, “I promise you we’ll be out of here soon.”

Miu wanted to believe him, but something in the bottom of her gut told her not to, “...Are you protags always so goddamn sunny and bright? It’s hurtin’ my fucking eyes.”

Makoto laughs in response. Almost as if cued by the word “protag”, Kaede emerges from the bathroom with an agitated huff, having changed into the set of clothes Miu chucked at her. Her wet hair drips down her back and onto the floor, clearly indicating that she hadn’t bothered to dry once exiting the shower. She stomps into the room and past Makoto, who hovers near the door. She begins gesturing with the knowledge that the Ultimate Hope can not understand her.

 _Miu! You can’t just walk in on me while I’m taking a shower!_ She scowls with little ill-intent, agitated enough that she was hissing the words under her breath as she signed.

“Ey!! D-Don’t yell at me in front of the guest, Bakamatsu!!” Miu returns, gesturing at the awkwardly-standing Makoto.

“It’s all good, I’m leaving now! I’ve got a few other people to talk to,” Makoto waves quickly, “Nice chatting with you, Miu!”

She probably should have returned something along the lines of ‘yeah, you too!’ but ended up quickly throwing, “Whatever!” at him before snapping her head back towards Kaede. The former pianist waves at the man as he exits the hotel room, anxious to return some sort of polite farewell, before snapping back with a playful frown.

 _Not cool!_ She scorns, now less exasperated and more joking, _If you’re gonna walk in on me without clothes on, at least take me to dinner first!_

“Oh, _please._ Like anybody would wanna go on a date with you,” Miu returns with a snarky smile.

Kaede gasps dramatically, hand over her heart, before she steps into the bathroom and grabs a hairbrush. Miu barely has any time to laugh before the blonde returns and chucks the object directly at her.

-=+=-

It was remarkable how little privacy Himiko had on the first floor.

She needed to find a place to talk but was coming up rather short. Participants were everywhere, in every restroom and unlocked ballroom and stairwell, creating a floor so crowded that it seemed almost impossible for Himiko and Korekiyo to speak without eavesdroppers. The elevators to the hotel rooms were now on the other side of the building, meaning Himiko would have to turn around and walk all the way back. It might be an easy task with Korekiyo’s long legs, but it was already proving to be tough on Himiko’s shorter body length and low, low endurance levels.

Somehow all of these factors led the pair back into the vents. It’s another entrance from the one they had previously sat in, one closer to the kitchen area. Korekiyo had the vent locations practically memorised by now, surprisingly aware of where they were despite being in this hotel maybe an hour more than Himiko has.

Korekiyo was the first in, with Himiko following directly after him once she stepped onto the rather convenient decorative table. She seals the grate closed behind her. 

“Alright. Let’s begin,” Korekiyo immediately starts, whipping his notebook out from the inside of his long coat and opening it to an exact page of scribbles and code, “Question one--”

“Woah-- _Hello???”_ Himiko pauses, still reeling from complete shock and relatively numb to her senses, “Slow down! I’m-- Give me one second.”

Korekiyo nods acutely, resting his hand on the notebook as he shifts to make himself more comfortable in the cramped vents. Himiko, fitting perfectly in the confined area, squeezes her eyes closed and takes a few long breaths, nose twitching as she very visibly recalls the events in her brain. Got to hotel, checked by security, met Makoto. Signed in, saw Korekiyo, Underwater Escape Trick. Met Sakine. Nap, convention start, texts and rules, gunshot? Vents. Panic. Found Tenko, found friends, glass unbreakable, nobody leaves, lunchtime, talked with Kokichi, dead body. Dead body. Dead body.

All of this commotion is just making her incredibly tired. Maybe once she’s finished with all of this detective business she should take a nap. In these vents or in her hotel room, whichever one she passes out in first.

“...Continue,” Himiko says lifelessly. 

Korekiyo immediately starts again, like somebody had pressed play on a video recorder, “When did you first meet Sakine?”

“Uh…. Bathroom. Early this morning…” Himiko squints her eyes as if she was trying to find more specificity in that statement, but still finishes her answer with a vague, “...Yeah.”

“That was your first encounter with her? You can’t recall any earlier meeting?”

“ I told you, we only met this morning…” she sighs, lips drooping into a lazy frown, “What, don’t believe me, or something…?”

Korekiyo shakes his head and scribbles her answers down, “No, I only find it curious. She acted as if you had known each other for some time. Nevertheless,” he finishes writing and continues, “Under what name did she introduce herself?”

Himiko’s face scrunches in confusion, “...Um, Sakine? Same as she introduced herself at lunch… I don’t get it, what was she supposed to introduce herself as?”

“How many times have you noticed her speaking with Kokichi?” he carries on, disregarding her last question.

His questions are only leading to more questions for the redhead, “...Once? Just before I ran outside. I don’t get what--”

“Has she mentioned holding any grudges? Any malicious intent?”

Himiko pauses. Again, it’s not like she knew this woman.

“...She mentioned how she didn’t like Danganronpa,” she answers after a beat of pondering, “She didn’t want to come, but apparently they went to her house and forced her to. Korekiyo, I really don’t know her that well…”

“Oh? Doesn’t like Danganronpa? Very interesting indeed,” he nods along, scrawling her words down in that unreadable code. Himiko watches as he turns completely silent, most likely adding his own thoughts to the matter as he scribbles. The silence is abruptly broken as he slams the notebook closed, snapping Himiko out of any daydreams. He begins to climb towards the exit, “Well, that is all. I greatly appreciate your assistance.”

“Wh-- Wait, that’s it? You’re not going to tell me anything??” Himiko objects loudly.

Korekiyo pauses, staring at her as if it was obvious, “I’ve already asked all of the questions I had for you.” 

“...Yeah, and I’m still confused,” she replies.

“Oh. Well,” Korekiyo hums before pausing, shrugging at her, and trying to head towards the grate again.

In a manner very similar to what he had done the last time they were in the vents, Himiko shoots her legs out and blocks him from the exit. Of course, considering how little she was, it wasn’t exactly a huge obstacle for Korekiyo to pass through, in fact if he wanted to he could just shove her to the side. It was more of a statement, if anything.

“Was that necessary?” he questions.

“Uh, yeah, it was! Why are you so suspicious of Sakine?” 

Korekiyo exhales through his nose, clearly the slightest bit agitated. It appears that not even he was interested in talking with Himiko longer than he needed to, “I have my reasons. I could have sworn you did not want me to stay around for long?”

Himiko winces at her past self internally. She _had_ made a pretty big deal about not wanting to talk to him. But the more he asked vague questions, his mannerisms and visible facial expression implying wisdom beyond either of their years, the more she wanted to know the answers. It was almost cruel how quickly she had fixated herself on solving this hotel’s mysteries, because it meant she wasn’t going to let it go until she wore herself out.

“You’re not being _fair,”_ she pouts, “I told you everything I knew about Sakine--”

“And I made a fool out of myself in public so that you were able to sneak into the medical tent,” Korekiyo interrupts calmly, “I believe that makes us even.”

“Oh, come onnnn! Nobody has been telling me _anything!”_

“Perhaps that is for a reason,” Korekiyo says, voice beginning to grow sharp as the need to leave grows stronger, “Since when have you been so interested in detective work? I don’t recall you being so curious in the simulation.”

Himiko’s eyebrows furrow, crossing her legs to appear formal and more serious, “I just want to know why Sakine is such a huge deal to you. If she’s dangerous, you should at least let me know! You owe this to me.”

Korekiyo’s yellow eyes narrow for a moment, the only visible part of him hardening, “I don’t believe I owe you anything.”

He tries to escape again, but Himiko was having none of it. Hours upon hours of people ignoring her questions and avoiding giving her any clear answers comes boiling over. People like Kokichi and Makoto and the Future Foundation and Korekiyo all floating past her as if she was an extra to their main character, avoiding any incriminating questions like the plague and being so vague it hurt Himiko’s brain. Kokichi had even said it himself, he was intentionally omitting the truth so she would have to find missing pieces herself. And Himiko is going to find those pieces. She isn’t going to sit around and be lazy, she isn’t go to be a background character as everything unfolds around her.

She can’t be complicit this time. She can’t be lazy this time. She won’t be useless this time.

It’s cruel, but Himiko did have something against him. Her trump card. She extends her arm, her copper eyes staring him down.

“You owe this to Tenko,” she says.

Korekiyo doesn’t react, at least not with his eyes, and that was what was most frightening. He locks his cat-like irises on her own, hauntingly still, as if he stopped breathing all together. Lost all life and froze into a looming statue. Himiko was certainly startled by chilling change in demeanor, twitching slightly as if she had been threatened, but still stood her ground.

Korekiyo finally breaks the stillness with a shaky inhale, striking eye contact unwavering.

“...Is emotional explotation something you learn in Business Management?” he asks coldly, voice surprisingly weak.

Himiko tilts her head sarcastically, “Self taught, baby.”

She receives a heavy exhale through the nose, “So. You don’t want me to talk to you, but you also want me to reveal everything I know,” at his blunt recap of her conflicting mindset, Himiko grimaces slightly, “You are… an intriguing character, I will give you that.”

“Thanks,” Himiko replies with a half-worried, half-smug smile, oblivious to any ill-intent.

Korekiyo sighs once more and falls backwards, now sitting down. He drums his fingers absent-mindedly on his notebook with his eyes now narrowed, as if analyzing the redhead in her entirety by staring into her eyes. It was terrifying. Himiko was too stubborn to look away, but by staring back it felt as if she was revealing all of her secrets. He was reading her like a goddamn book. At one point he had been staring for so long that Himiko involuntarily starts to shiver.

“If I am going to reveal my information, then I will need another favor from you,” he replies, “That way we are even--”

“But--”

 _“Even._ In terms of _outside_ the simulator. And I’d appreciate if the favor is something a little more difficult than answering questions with minimum effort. I did just fake a fainting spell for you back there."

Himiko purses her lips, nose unconsciously twitching, “What can _I_ do? I don’t know much, either,” a sudden thought reaches her and she slowly brightens, pointing towards the pencil in Korekiyo’s hand, “I can teach you how to teleport that pencil from one person to another.”

“That doesn’t seem necess--” in the middle of his objection, he looks down to realize the pencil was no longer in his grip. Korekiyo’s eyes widen in muted wonder as Himiko flicks her hand, quickly making it appear again. A rather lame parlor trick she had learned way back in her training, “...While that is amusing, it is hardly relevant. I instead would like to ask for more information about Sakine and Kokichi’s relationship. Even if you aren’t as close to Sakine as she believes you are, you are undoubtedly friends with Kokichi.”

She was, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be receiving much information. Korekiyo was asking for her to either pry information from Kokichi, a very close friend but a known liar, or get closer to Sakine, a total wild card who was seemingly faking her persona. Himiko had a pretty good shot, however. And if they wouldn’t tell her anything upfront, she could always do some more sneaking around. She’s good with keeping hidden, she’s realized.

“If I give you information about what I find out, then you give me information about what you find out,” she proposes.

Korekiyo’s right eyebrow raises, “That’s rather vague. It seems you are suggesting that we team up.”

Oh, no. Oh, NOOOOOOO. That’s _exactly_ what she was proposing. What the hell, Himiko? Where did the original plan go? Did you completely forget about Tenko and Angie? Did you not have this exact argument about two hours ago where you agreed to ignore this man? Is this sudden, overwhelming urge to solve mysteries and receive information and _be important this time_ enough to completely override the argument of whether or not he should be forgiven? Is logic and her sense of intellect strong enough to dismiss any moral dilemmas that will undoubtedly arrive with partnering with her girlfriend’s near murderer and her best friend’s _actual_ murderer?

No matter the answer, she’s already raised her pinky finger. No confusing moral dilemma is able to throw out her rather childish idea of a pinky swear.

Korekiyo almost laughs, thinking that it was a joke, but realizes pretty quickly that she was being deadly serious about their pinkies being the symbol of their unspoken agreement.

“Are you certain we should be doing this?” he asks, raising his finger hesitantly.

Himiko knows he doesn’t want to associate with anybody who reminds him of the killing game. He was probably holding the exact same internal debate within himself, the argument between logic or distancing himself from somebody with close relations to who he used to be.

Himiko nods.

“No,” she answers, sealing their alliance with a solemn pinky swear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 29/30
> 
> himiko and kiyo are working together crab rave
> 
> i hope everybody is doing alright, stay safe <3!!


	14. oh all the things i shouldn't say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> art class with da girlz!!!!! himiko needs to learn social cues

**Untitled Group Chat**

**May 20th, 2:46 PM**

**Unknown Number:** Hello! This is Makoto Naegi. There are some additional things I forgot to mention during the lunchtime meeting: We will be having dinner as scheduled, but there will be one last meetup at 10:45 PM to make a few more announcements about the situation at hand. This meetup will have a mandatory sign-in, and it is required that everybody attends. Please be aware that this will only take place if we have not managed to find a way out of the building safely! 

**Unknown Number:** As well as this, every participant is expected to treat the list of rules sent during the opening ceremonies as if they were real. This means curfews and restrictions will be enforced and mandatory. Please do not tamper with any of the cameras -- we already have two of our best working on dismantling them! You are not, however, allowed to follow through with any of the more violent rules.  Any participant found inflicting intentional damage or using prohibited weapons will be seen as a threat. 

**Unknown Number:** No need to panic, this is only a cautionary measure! The Future Foundation and Team Danganronpa are working very hard to handle the situation, and we will get back to you as soon as we have updates. Thank you for your cooperation! :)

**Unknown Number 2:** ok

**Unknown Number:** This is an automated text message. All messages to this number will not be transmitted. If you need to contact the messenger, please use XXX-XXX-XXXX.

**Unknown Number 2:** huh

**Unknown Number 3:** Did this dumbass really put the entire cast of danganronpa into one groupchat……………………….

**Unknown Number:** This is an automated text message. All messages to this number will not be transmitted. If you need to contact the messenger, please use XXX-XXX-XXXX.

**Rantaro Amami:** so…. how y’all doin……..

**Unknown Number 4:** Whomst in this chat smokes weed

-=+=-

Sakine and Kokichi have just straight up disappeared. Teleported. Vanished into thin air.

It’s like they sensed Himiko trying to find them and both mutually agreed to busy themselves with events so far away from the redhead’s location that she has to check into every other room before finding one of them. Kokichi, after receiving a text from Himiko asking where he was, answered that he had been called into the administration office with Shuichi and Rantaro. That means he was being asked about the events on the roof, and wouldn’t appreciate Himiko running into the room badgering him with questions.

Himiko finds Sakine after Angie texts her to attend her art class. The redhead had already texted Korekiyo (they had exchanged contact information and Himiko had lovingly named his contact ‘Tall’ in her rush to leave) that she couldn’t find either of them, to which he responded with a vague “K.” Once she actually stopped actively searching for her, The Ultimate Chess Player appears in the same executive office that the art class was taking place. Himiko immediately sends Korekiyo a fleeting “nvm” before rushing into the room. 

The executive office had been rearranged, desks pushed up against the walls to create room for six easels arranged in a semi-circle. A bowl of fruit, the most aesthetically pleasing assortment of apples and bananas you could imagine, sat on a podium in the middle of the room to be the model for this still life class. Tenko sat next to two other girls, one with round glasses and the other with a bob cut, trying her best to maintain conversation while also texting. There’s an empty chair next to her, probably for Himiko, and next to that chair is Sakine and then, surprisingly, Byakuya, who was speaking silently into an earpiece. Himiko wasn’t too sure why the Ultimate Affluent Progeny was taking an art class, but it was most likely forced upon him by Makoto. 

Sakine looked different. Her hair was tied up into two space buns and her eyes were now distinctly pink, her black face mask continuing to cover half of her face as she squirts acrylic paint onto her palette. Her clothes, still shapeless and covering her entire body, were now much darker in tone. She still has no nametag. Now that Korekiyo gave Himiko the idea that she could be faking her identity, the redhead suddenly finds the lack of identification incredibly suspicious.

Angie notices Himiko arriving and quickly beams. It was really nice to be near people she’s close with again. That whole dead body thing was not holding well in Himiko’s stomach.

“Ah! Himiko! You made it!” Angie greets, gesturing the redhead into the room with open arms. 

The former artist had mentioned how she wasn’t excited about this class, an expression of doubt that Tenko and Himiko had assured would pass as soon as they started. Angie didn’t want to paint. But there weren’t a ton of people here, so hopefully that gave her a little more peace of mind. Himiko wishes she had peace of mind. But considering everything, it kinda felt unrealistic to ask for. Like a child asking Mr. Santa for a dragon on Christmas. 

(It doesn’t work, by the way. Not like Himiko would know. This is totally not from personal experience.)

Angie takes Himiko by the shoulders and walks her towards the center of the room, “Just in time! Let me introduce you to the others. On the far right is Komaru Naegi,” The girl with a bob cut waves fondly, her smile warm. “Then Toko Fukawa,” The girl with round glasses doesn’t reply, in fact it appeared as if she was ignoring them even harder. “You already know Tenko,” Himiko’s girlfriend looks up from her phone and quickly puts it away, waving enthusiastically. Himiko giggles and waves back. “Sakine Hujomon, and Byakuya Togami.”

“Nice to meet you!” Komaru says for both herself and the hunched over author next to her, before turning back to Toko and continuing their vivid conversation. Bright and friendly, just like her brother.

“Nyeh… you too,” Himiko returns to the pair, shuffling over to her stool before turning to the left. “Nice to see you guys again.”

Byakuya barely nods in her direction, still talking to whoever it was on the other end of the earpiece. Sakine notices how busy he is and takes it into account before returning Himiko’s gaze.

“Hey, bestie!” She greets, and then turns back to Byakuya and leans into his ear. “Hear that, tightass?  _ Bestie. _ I made a  _ friend _ here.”

Byakuya doesn’t turn towards her. Instead he sighs, stands sharply upwards, and grabs his stool. Without another word or glance in anybody’s direction takes the stool and walks directly out of the office. 

Angie waves him goodbye while everybody else tries not to laugh. As soon as the former artist closes the door, finalizing the number of students in this tiny class, Sakine bursts into shrill laughter. It’s drowned out by Tenko and Komaru joining along, but something about the chess player’s rather distinct cackle must have struck familiarity with the Ultimate Writing Prodigy. Toko stares at the girl from where she’s hunched over, her face scrunched inwards as if she had just sucked on a lemon, trying to distinguish where she’s heard it from.

“Hey, girls only!” Komaru notices with a cheeky smile, making light of the situation. Her voice snaps Toko out of her impolite staring.

Tenko throws her fists in the air, “Yeah!! Girls only art class!!!”

“D-Dear God….” Toko mumbles under her breath. 

She’s a lot more visibly disgruntled by the situation at hand, so much so that Himiko was able to clearly distinguish her annoyed state. Whether her patience was so low that this attitude was caused solely by Tenko and Komaru’s volume or she has been this crabby all day was lost on the redhead. Considering her demeanor once Himiko entered the room, it was likely the latter. At least she was being openly annoyed with the situation Danganronpa has placed them all in, unlike a ton of other people who were smiling through the day as if this was a normal occurrence for them.

“There’s only six people here? I thought there would be more,” Himiko says.

Angie shrugs, smiling brightly, “That’s fine! I’d actually rather a small class than a large one, nyahaha! It means I can work with more people.”

“Is Byakuya gone?” Tenko asks.

Komaru nudges Toko playfully, “Go get your man!”

_ “Please,” _ The writer shoves back with a tired eye roll.

“I do not think he is coming back, so I guess we will start!” Angie begins, scanning over everybody’s palettes to make sure they had the correct colors. Himiko was hurriedly squirting paint onto hers, with Tenko assisting to speed up the process. “We start with the rough outline. Using your pencil, create a light sketch of the bowl in front of you. Make sure you don’t press down too heavily.”

The majority of the class disregard her advice and immediately press down too heavily. Tenko nearly breaks her pencil with how hard she stabbed the canvas with it, a little too enthusiastic to begin her painting. Komaru continues the conversation she was having with Toko while she sketched delicately against her canvas, the Ultimate Writing Prodigy nodding along as she squints at a particularly odd-looking apple. Angie skips over to watch the others, encouraging Himiko and her vague circles with warm instructions about what she could do next. Once she finishes her tiny lecture with a supportive rub to the redhead’s shoulder, Angie slides over to Tenko and removes the brunette’s hand from the canvas.

Himiko’s apples are straight up circles. Her bananas are flat crescents. With how long she spends talking to Angie, you would think some of her friend’s artistic ability would rub off. But at least she wasn’t doing so poorly that Angie had to revoke her pencil, like she did with Tenko.

The redhead spends most of the time calculating what exactly she should say to start conversation with Sakine. She was never the best conversationalist, but she was much more friendly-looking than her rather spooky teammate, so she will have to be the one to get this ball rolling. She keeps opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish. 

_ So, what was that chat with Kokichi about?  _ It was that easy. She just needed to casually ease into conversation.

“So, how is everybody feeling?” Komaru beats her to it. In some way, Himiko was grateful for the conversation starter.

To answer the question honestly: Pretty Bad. Sure, Himiko has seen dead bodies before (that fact was seriously disturbing and quite honestly heartbreaking), but it wasn’t as if she was numb to it. She’s certain there are people here who  _ are _ numb to seeing death, having already gone through enough of it during the simulation that it held real-world applications, but Himiko just wasn’t ready to completely desensitize herself. Instead, this wave of nausea settles deep in her throat as she masks any form of visible distress from her friends.

“R-Really, Omaru?” Toko asks with a noticeable stutter, picking her pencil up from the canvas. “W-We’re in  _ this _ situation, and th-th- _ that’s  _ the first question you ask? I-It’s a little obvious, don’t you think?”

Komaru shrugs, “I thought I’d be polite…”

“Um, honestly?? Not too great,” Tenko answers with a tense smile. Angie guides her hand as she speaks, softly outlining the bowl shape. “Things are looking kinda bad!!”

“We’re getting there, though! There are two people checking out the cameras, right? People are really working hard to tear this place apart.”

“Right. Kazuichi and Eiji? Ultimate Mechanics?”

Hey, that’s something Himiko could work with. Two names that they could investigate further.

“Good luck to ‘em,” Himiko mutters, “Angie, my apples suuuucckkkk….”

“I kinda wish we could do a little more, though,” Tenko says, “I-I’m not the best at all that smart stuff, but I can absolutely beat people up if needed!!”

“Y-Yeah, and it’s not like we’re rrr-recieving much information from Makoto,” Toko agrees, fidgeting at a necklace around her neck. It had a clock as the pendant. It was 3 pm. “C-Can’t expect much from a Danganronpa representative, I guess.”

“Hey, he’s trying his best! Also, be careful with what you say about Danganronpa-- There could be people listening, haha!” Komaru looks over the other four girls with faux-suspicion. “Are any of you spies?”

That joke could have been pretty accusing if she said it with any less cheer. 

“Not that I know of…” Himiko jokes back uneasily. 

Tenko and Angie laugh and agree that they weren’t spies. Sakine doesn’t respond, too engulfed in her rather intricate sketch. She’s finished her rough outline and has decided to continue scraping jagged lines into her canvas, abstract scratches and uncoordinated shapes. Angie doesn’t object. Himiko finds the noise a little annoying. 

“I won’t worry too much about it. There are many Ultimates here! I’m sure  _ somebody _ knows what they are doing,” Angie assures them lightly. Her glance flickers very briefly over towards Sakine, but it doesn’t stay there for long. “Everybody seems to be done with their sketches! We’re going to continue with a base coat. Everybody has red, right?”

“Angie?” Tenko asks as the group assembles their paint brushes. “What do I do if my sketch is…” She pauses again, tilting her head, as if she was trying to find a specific word. “...Bad?”

“Y-You’d think we’d have been out of here by lunchtime…” Toko continues off of Angie’s first comment. The others begin to apply red paint to their apples, however varied the drawings were. “Since everybody h-here has some so-called  _ talent…” _

“Such a Debbie Downer,” Komaru teases. Her smile was starting to look slightly frazzled, stressed under the reminder of their situation.

The author ruffles, “I-I-I’m just saying! And I wouldn’t put it past Danganronpa to th-throw everybody into this mess, slap some corny marketing over it, and call it their Grand Finale.”

Well, since Sakine wasn’t talking, it wouldn’t hurt if Himiko could acquire  _ some _ sort of information to bring back to Korekiyo. It wasn’t as if they had specified what Himiko was supposed to find out during her makeshift investigation. She could pull a Korekiyo: lean back and observe the situation creepily. She had a lot on her mind, and conversation wasn’t necessarily appealing. Himiko could take this class to listen and calm down.

Because there’s something about her painting that makes her feel uneasy.

“Make sure your paint isn’t too thick. Try thinning it with some water,” Angie instructs Himiko softly as the others continue to talk. Himiko looks at her painting and despises it with her entire being. She’s barely even started adding color to it and it already looked like a massive turd.

“If we’re throwing theories out… It could also be the AHL,” Komaru says. “I mean, wasn’t there a rumor or something going around that they were planning something big?”

Himiko dips her paintbrush back into the paint. The red is an ugly color, she decides. That must be why she hates her painting so much.

“It could be either of them,” Angie shrugs quickly. “I’ve already told Himiko, but just for everybody else: Make sure the paint isn’t too thick.”

Komaru continues to outline a banana, her colors mixing accidentally and creating a disappointing orange. Nothing like Himiko’s, which was a deep red, “You never know. It could just be some… elaborate prank!”

Everybody immediately disagrees, shaking their heads in unison. Himiko’s eyes don’t leave her painting. She’s accidentally painted a banana red. That shade was so hypnotizing.

_ “S-Seriously?” _ Toko says. “Jeez, Omaru…”

“Hey, it’s just a theory!”

“I mean, it could just be a prank!! I wouldn’t be surprised if some nasty boy was trying to scare us--” Tenko shakes her head suddenly, an abrupt thought striking her, “Or girl!! Especially since the text came from inside the building--”

“The text came from inside the building?” Sakine questions.

The room silences instantly. Tenko pauses, mouth hanging open as if she was a buffering video. It’s as if her train of thought had suddenly been diverted, had been snatched and thrown in a completely new direction, leaving her absolutely voiceless. Sakine turns towards her, probably the first time she has taken her eyes off of her horrid, horrid painting, just to maintain intense eye contact with the brunette. It was chilling. It was chilling, and Himiko barely looked at the scene. 

The redhead listened to it happening, allowed the sound vibrations to pass through one ear and out the other, but didn’t avert her gaze from her painting. It was no longer a bowl of fruit, that was for sure. She had mixed too much water into the red, creating a medium much too thin to use successfully, and was now watching as the paint made slow trails down the canvas and towards the floor. She’s colored in the entirety of her sketch in the same maroon. She couldn’t care less if her bananas were red, she was painting it anyways.

The color reminded her of something. 

“Uh-- They, um, didn’t tell you?” Tenko says, fidgeting with her hair. “...The message was tracked from inside the building.”

_ How did she know that? _

Himiko absorbs the information like a sponge. Text message came from inside the building, text message came from inside the building. It wasn’t information about Sakine, but it was  _ something. _ Something she could bring back to tell Korekiyo. That fact still baffled her a bit,  _ bringing something back to tell Korekiyo. _ They had made the shaky agreement only a few minutes ago, but it was still shocking that Himiko chose him specifically to work with. Now that she was sitting next to both Tenko and Angie, his near-victim and  _ actual _ victim, their agreement just made her feel kinda icky. Not that it didn’t in the first place, but now it was worse. 

It was probably the whole dead body thing sitting pretty grossly in her stomach. The red color wasn’t helping.

Himiko was moving her paintbrush in long strokes, the red color beginning to stain the outsides of her sketch. Like a toddler doodling outside of the lines. The red was painfully familiar. Recent. Like a fresh wound. Himiko’s mind was dawdling elsewhere, thoughts sinking towards the past rather than the important present.

“...I don’t remember anybody saying anything about that,” Angie replies. 

Himiko doesn’t remember anybody saying anything about that, either, but she’s not going to join the conversation just to say that. She’s getting paint on her hands. Her whole body feels heavy.

The former Ultimate Artist rapidly tries to change the subject once more, “Oh-- Komaru, you’ll have to wait a minute before shading, it’ll need to dry!”

Komaru purses her lips in apology, “Sorry! I got a little carried awa--”

“I saw a dead body in the medical tent,” Himiko announces.

The words flood out of her mouth like a released breath, like she had been holding those words in for the duration of this art class. The sentence was incredibly casual for such dire implications, her phrasing monotone and seemingly hollow.

The girls all turn towards her as Himiko places her brush down. The memory is gone, and suddenly the red paint is nothing more than what it is: paint. It was no longer the bloody wound, but rather a cheap medium Team Danganronpa had purchased for mediocre portraits of fruit bowls. But the damage had already been done. The entire room stared at the redhead with wide, open eyes.

“...Pardon?” Komaru finally asks.

Himiko turns towards her slowly, her neck creaking as if she hadn’t used it in a while, “There was a dead body. In the medical tent. It was that guy who was talking all loud at the opening ceremony.” 

Nobody in the room had their mouths closed. All of them stared, wide-eyed, jaws dropped to the floor at the very sudden, very abrupt declaration of a murder. Himiko had announced the discovery of a body, echoing a very familiar bear in her unconscious attempt at clearing her mind and telling the truth. It was either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid for her to just blurt that out, especially in front of two strangers and a the same girl that her partner was suspicious of.

Toko turns back to her painting, murmuring silently under her breath. Her hand begins to shake, and she eventually has to set her paintbrush down. 

“Are-- Are you  _ sure?” _ Tenko asks, voice wavering.

If Himiko sat down and really thought about it, gave herself enough time to evaluate, she would probably be able to convince herself he wasn’t dead. If she stared at a blank wall and forced herself to warp her memories for long enough, she could probably convince herself that it wasn’t a dead body. The moment was rather fleeting, her view of the corpse rushed in her hurry to enter and exit the medical tent as rapidly as she could.

“I… think so,” Himiko replies. It was what she knows as the truth, for now.

Way to kill the mood, Himiko. It’s like she’s sucked all of the good vibes out of the room and replaced it with a tense, unbearable atmosphere. She stares at everybody’s faces, trying to grasp what everybody was thinking about this new information as she shifts uncomfortably in her stool. After a moment of heavy dread and conflicted consideration, Toko stands from her stool.

“S-See? I told you they’re  _ hiding _ things…” She basically mutters to her friend, picking her jacket up from off of the ground, “I-I gotta go tell--”

“Yeah, I think I better leave too. But this class was super fun! Sorry we didn’t finish,” Komaru excuses rapidly, taking Toko’s hand and speed-walking out of the room, “Nice meeting you all!”

“Yeah, you t--” Before they could finish, the two girls had already left the room.

The room remains silent. Himiko was starting to regret opening her mouth and revealing that information. Maybe she should have suffered in silence.

Sakine places her paintbrush onto the palette with a content hum, “Damn, I’m good at this! Anywayssss, I think I’m gonna head out too. This shade of red isn’t doing me any favors, y’know?”

“Oh, yeah! Um… See you later!” Angie responds as cheerfully as she could muster, taking Toko’s empty stool in preparation for a serious talk with Himiko and Tenko.

There’s a fleeting moment as Sakine was leaving where Himiko realizes that perhaps she should follow her. She’s received virtually nothing from this conversation that involved the Ultimate Chess Player or her alleged false identity. Instead, she’s found out that the text came from inside the building, another pretty important piece of information, but slightly irrelevant to what Korekiyo wanted. Himiko knows that Tenko and Angie were distressed, though. They wanted answers about what the redhead had just announced.

Sakine was important, but her friends came first. The redhead allows the chess player to leave the room. The brunette tosses a wave over her shoulder without turning back to any of them, closing the door behind her and throwing the room back into silence.

“Are you mad at me?” Himiko asks. It’s the first question that comes to mind. Tenko had been staring at the floor with her eyebrows furrowed while Angie’s eyes glazed over.

“Wh-- No. No, no, we’re not. That’s just…” Angie returns from whatever daydream she had been partaking in, “Pretty concerning…”

“Yeah… are you okay?” Tenko asks, grabbing both of Himiko’s hands, “When did you find this out? Who else knows?”

_ Korekiyo knows. I told him before I told you, in fact,  _ “I found out a few minutes ago. I think a few nurses know…. And probably Makoto…”

“And are you okay?” Angie repeats.

Eh. Probably not. The whole situation was confusing and happening way too quickly for her to process. Maybe if they were to repeat the question a few hours later, Himiko might break down crying. It always seems to happen like that, where she just goes relatively blank until a period of time passes.

“Meh,” Himiko shrugs. It wasn’t the most honest answer, nor did it seem all that respectful for the man who died. “I’m just worried about what it means, that’s all.”

Tenko and Angie remain quiet, the brunette still holding the shorter girl’s hands and rubbing at them nervously. There’s definitely something on their minds, definitely some dark thoughts that have emerged at the idea of a dead body. They barely question Himiko about the validity of her statement, they simply accept it as true. Himiko stares as they stare back, all three of them waiting for the others to continue, all three of them waiting for the other to make the next move.

Angie takes a massive breath and holds it, almost as if the oxygen hitched in her throat, “...I should start packing up. The art class seems over.”

“Let me help,” Tenko offers immediately, rubbing Himiko’s hand supportively one last time before leaping out of her stool to return the desk to their proper locations.

Alright. So, revealing somebody had died is a definite mood killer. Himiko should not have done that in the middle of Angie’s class. That was most definitely a mistake. And Himiko hasn’t even told either of them about working with Kore--

Oh, god. It’s as if she suddenly remembered. They had reacted so poorly to the information about the dead body, surely they wouldn’t want the redhead to reveal another damning secret, right? She should leave. Yeah. Right? She should remove herself before she ends up making everything worse without even knowing it.

Himiko begins packing up canvases. Angie was talking to Tenko behind her. She said she didn’t really care about the class, she was just worried, that’s all. She was being honest and vulnerable. Tenko responds that she was also worried, but she would protect her and Himiko with all of her might. Himiko couldn’t really say it back. The only defense she held was some lame party tricks. A distraction, maybe? Perhaps Himiko could become useful as a distraction as everybody else booked it.

The redhead takes down the canvases. Her painting was concerning, but it was absolutely nothing compared to Sakine’s. The Ultimate Chess Player had completely disregarded the idea of still life, and had instead thrown ugly colors at the surface in some horrid attempt at a masterpiece. The paint morphed and contorted into this abstract, unsightly face, it’s mouth hanging open in aghast horror. It was rushed and sloppy but incredibly terrifying at the same time. 

Himiko was really starting to think she was in over her head with this whole “chat with Sakine” thing. There were things she didn’t know. Things she probably  _ shouldn’t _ know about the chess player.

“I think I’m going to get Kaede to call a class meeting. That sounds reasonable, right?” Angie suggests, clutching a bundle of paintbrushes with her life. “Then Himiko can explain everything there!”

No. No, she shouldn’t be sharing this information with everybody. There are things they won’t want to know, realities that they won’t want to face. Himiko needed to get better at this if she wanted to solve any mysteries. With great power comes great responsibility.

And that responsibility might just be shielding everybody from the horrors of this convention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 27/30
> 
> hope everybody is having a nice day, and thank you so much for all of your comments and kudos !! <3333333


	15. god bless this perfect shitstorm! i hope it takes me with it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> check it out, gang! miu's asking for help!

Miu presses the elevator button.

The plan seemed simple when she laid it out. She would change into more suitable clothes, nothing too revealing but not entirely formal and prudishly boring. She would walk out of the door, laptop in tow, march down the hallway without cursing at any of the cameras or checking behind her every five seconds, and reach the elevator. She would take that very elevator down to the parking garage, where she would then go to the basement area. They would hopefully let her in, where then she would find Chihiro and ask a few questions about the code without being too suspicious. It sounded reasonable enough in her mind.

The plan was being executed successfully, if rather unsmoothly. She couldn’t settle on an outfit and ended up throwing on a pink turtleneck and jeans, a fairly fashionable outfit that allows her to sprint if she absolutely needed to. Her thick hair breaks the first hair tie and just barely manages to stay in the ponytail she finally wrangles it into. Her jacket had been worn for three days straight now but she huddles in it anyways because it’s comforting. She could barely be bothered to throw on any more makeup so she wipes it all off and reapplies light mascara. With a half-hearted wave to Kaede, she exits the room. She then reenters the room once realizing she had left K1-B0 behind. She reached the elevator. 

The plan was going pretty alright. All up until Kokichi walked into the elevator.

To cut him some undeserved slack, it didn’t appear as if he wanted to get into the elevator with her, either. As soon as the doors opened on the fourth floor, both of them reflexively recoiled at the sight of the other, staring at each other silently. Miu instinctively flinches at first, but after a second of pause and a not-so-subtle glance behind her she begins to stare daggers at him, quietly demanding he get away from her. Kokichi glares back with his signature grin, eyes wandering as he undoubtedly searches for another elevator to use. The only other elevator was stacked with people, and would be incredibly crowded and cramped if he were to even attempt entering.

The doors began to close, and for a moment Miu’s chest prematurely unclenched in relief. Before the elevator was able to completely shut, Kokichi glided inside.

Miu’s body stiffens as she rigidly shuffles to the side, glaring at the doors where Kokichi used to be instead of looking him directly in the eyes. Kokichi also stares forward, the same amount of venom and hatred in his purple irises. Both of them knew what would happen once they started talking.

“Nice to see you again, Miu!” He greets without making eye contact. The strawberry’s blondes nostrils flare in repressed rage. “But to _speak my truth,_ I smelled you coming from four floors up.”

Of course he was still on that stupid Speak My Truth exercise. He was going to milk that goddamn “conversation starter” for all it was worth.

Miu grits her teeth so roughly that she worries she might chip a filling, “I _acknowledge_ how hard it must be to live with your gargantuan fucking nostrils.”

Kokichi huffs in bitter amusement, a smile curled up his cheeks smugly. If Miu were to squint at him for longer than the one second intervals she is allowing herself to have, she could notice that the black paint she had thrown was still smudged against his eye and dotting his forehead. Somebody had taken a rag and tried to wash it off, but some gray residue was still left over. It gave Miu some twisted sense of achievement, a cocky feeling of fulfillment burying itself in her chest. It had been so cruelly overridden, however, by the taxing sentiment of dread and unbridled hatred for the man that resided in the very same elevator. 

She’s remarkably silent this time around. Almost as if biting her tongue. She had places to be and people to find, and she did _not_ have the time or the energy to deal with Kokichi’s shit. Everything about her body was rigid and unmoving, from her frozen gaze plastered on the doors to her clenched fists at her sides, squeezed so tightly her knuckles were turning a stark white. An elevator just felt cruel. Perhaps the most confined area they could be stuck in together. All she could hope for was that he got off at a level before the parking garage.

It seems Kokichi didn’t have much snark left to share, either. He was tapping his right shoe repeatedly against the floor, the sound beginning to create an ungodly amount of rage in Miu’s stomach. He looks over and notices how the button for the indoor parking garage had already been pressed.

“Ah! I _appreciate_ you pressing the button for me!” He thanks insincerely.

“The fuck are you goin’ to the parking garage for?” Miu retorts.

Kokichi turns towards her with an innocent head tilt, “The fuck are _you_ going to the parking garage for, clown whore?”

“Eee-- _C-Clown whore!?”_

“And, to speak my truth, I’m going to the parking garage to find my lamborghini and get out of here. The stress is bad for my skin, y’know?” Kokichi sighs dramatically, checking his nails nonchalantly. “That, plus the paint you threw in my eye.”

“Y-You should be lucky it was only paint, you dickless rat.”

“Wow, that insult was so good, Iruma! I acknowledge how hard it must have been to fit _two whole new words_ in that pea-sized, slutty brain of yours!”

“Are you calling me stupid!?” Miu spits.

Kokichi shrugs, gaze still on his nails, “If the shoe fits, wear it.”

The strawberry blonde turns her body to face the smaller boy, right finger pointed at him with pure venom. There’s something slightly desperate in her voice when she yells, “I’m _smarter than you,_ pukeweed!! Turn around and I’ll _show you_ _where that fucking shoe fits--!”_

The elevator doors creak open to reveal the parking garage. Miu zips her mouth closed at the sudden echo that engulfs her.

The parking garage was a noticeably eerie location. The lighting was terrible and a few of the overhead lights were blinking sporadically, dying before Miu’s very eyes. Cars seemed relatively sparse, indicating that many of the participants traveled via escort or taxi service, leaving the car park rather empty and vast. Somehow that made it worse. The open, dimly lit area felt hauntingly dangerous, as if the shadows were ready to cave in on the pair as they gingerly stepped into the garage. Massive pillars hold up the hotel and seperate different parking spots from each other, creating a maze of beams, cars, and then wide, open spaces of concrete and nothing.

There’s a group of people way back in the corner, all dressed in comfortable clothing as if they hadn’t changed since arriving at the hotel. They laugh and chat and cough when they inhale too much of the drugs they were undoubtedly smoking. The noise bounces off of the walls and prevents the parking garage from being too unbearably silent.

“These damn millennials and their drugs,” Kokichi curses, shaking a fist in their direction. “Going to hell, the lot of ‘em.”

“How the fuck do people keep smuggling weed…?” Miu wonders out loud.

The purple boy takes the remark as a beginning to a conversation and continues, despite the strawberry blonde clearly meaning that statement to be just for herself, “Earlier seasons get privileges! That, or medical reasons.”

Well, duh, she knew that. Even she has prescription bottles lined up on her bathroom’s sink. But it still doesn’t explain how these people have obtained pot. Especially in Japan, of all places. Especially after passing through a _security check_ . Maybe Kokichi was right, maybe certain people _were_ getting special privileges--

Woah. Hold on. What the fuck? Since when the fuck did Miu _agree_ with this rat turd? She hasn’t even said anything out loud and still finds herself shivering in disgust at the thought of agreeing to anything he could possibly say. She was so much smarter than that. 

Now that Miu was snapped back to the present, she realizes with edged disdain that Kokichi was skipping along right next to her as she approached the second entrance to the basement. She stops, he stops. She starts walking again, he starts walking again.

“The hell are you following me around like a damn puppy for?” Miu hisses with an agitated huff, stopping to turn to him. “Scram!!”

“To speak my truth, I’m only heading to my destination!” He replies chirpily, before adding a less buoyant, “Idiot slut.”

“Wh--” Her head spins around, as if following the echo as it bounces off of the walls and over towards the group of participants in the corner. “D-Did you really have to call me that in the most acoustic fuckin’ room there is!?”

“KEEP TALKING, YOU’RE MAKING IT SO MUCH BETTER!” Kokichi shouts. Miu flushes in embarrassment and quickly scampers away from him before he could finish his sentence.

She shuffles awkwardly over towards the basement door, shielding her red face from the group of participants with her hand. Kokichi allows her the headstart but rapidly zooms after her once it is over, breaking into an awkward half-jog while she speed-walks.

“I’d _appreciate_ it if you got lost,” Miu whispers, conscious of the participants who were beginning to rear their heads at the arguing pair.

“To speak my truth, I’m going in the same direction.”

“No, you’re not, dickwad! And you’ve got a lotta ass to be dickin’ with me!”

“Hey! I’m not lying!” He pouts, bottom lip wobbling. “Didn’t you hear me say ‘ _to speak my truth’?”_

Miu stops at the door. It’s another steel one, clearly marked with a sign that read, ‘BASEMENT -- AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY’. Yet another one of those electronic locks was on it, a green one with tacky, neon coloring that hurt Miu’s eyes. It seemed to be locked from the inside. The colors of the locks are another thing she should take note of. The wiring may be completely different depending on what doors they lock. 

“You’re going to the basement?” She asks upon noticing Kokichi park himself directly in front of the door. “No, you’re not. You’re fuckin’ lying.”

“Am not!”

“Are too.”

“Am _not!”_

“Are fuckin’ _too!!”_

“Am--” Very suddenly, Kokichi pricks up, like a cat with its ears raised in alarm. “Hold on, be quiet.”

Miu practically snarls at him, _“You_ don’t get to tell _me,_ gorgeous-girl-genius Miu Iruma, to be--”

 _“Shut up,”_ Kokichi demands sharply, suddenly very serious. The strawberry blonde yips and shrivels away from him.

The former supreme leader shoots her one last warning glare before leaning his ear against the door, pressing himself up against the surface so intensely that his cheek compressed against the wall. Miu regains her composure, baring her teeth at him rather weakly, before leaning herself inconspicuously against the door as well. She didn’t necessarily _want_ to look like she was copying Kokichi, but her curiosity once again got the best of her.

There were people talking behind the door. It was sorta funny to Miu, how both times she’s been to the basement she’s managed to eavesdrop on the more important characters as they engaged in Danganronpa politics. The basement, or at least the room these people were in, seemed a lot less busy than it did when Miu had trespassed, but if she were to take a guess it was likely because everybody was too preoccupied with working to chat. 

“We’re clearly running out of time,” That was Hajime. Miu wonders briefly if Kokichi knew who these people were. It wasn’t like she was going to tell him, so this knowledge could be a small victory she can hold over him. “People are going to freak the hell out, anyways. I say we just tell them straight.”

“We’re not trying to cause a mass panic. These are Danganronpa participants we’re talking about. We have no clue how they would react,” Kyoko replies.

“It’s not like they can fuckin’ do anything, all of the weapons are locked in that one ballroom,” This person was a little more unknown. Ultimate Biker Gang Leader, perhaps. “Speakin’ a’ which, I think we need to get a blowtorch to that door. Confiscate any firearms before the wrong person gets to ‘em.”

“I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be immensely stupid,” Byakuya retorts, a noisy chair indicating that he was standing up. “The door is already locked. There is no reason to unlock them. Especially when unlocking them opens those very firearms to a horde of angry, confused savages.” 

There’s a beat of silence, “...You’re seriously pissin’ me the fuck off.”

“You’re proving my point. People react unpredictably when they’re angry…” Another silence. It’s possible that Byakuya sighed. “And that unpredictability only worsens when they’re given complete freedom over what they are able to do. I’m certain we’ve all experienced it firsthand.”

A brief quiet. Miu can hear Kokichi’s obnoxious breathing.

“Your suggestion of what to do?” Kyoko asks.

“Don’t tell anybody about the warning shots being fired until we have managed a way out,” So _that’s_ what they were talking about. “Threat of danger will only make things worse.”

“I don’t think we’ve got any fuckin’ right to hide things from people. I say tell ‘em,” Mondo disagrees, “We’ll get a couple a’ strong people to prevent any shit from starting.”

“You are proposing that we start an enforcement crew,” Kyoko summarizes.

“I’ve gotta agree with Mondo on this one. Tell the people, deal with the consequences now. It’ll be a whole lot better than facing it down the road,” Hajime says. “These are smart people--”

“These are _dangerous_ people who could very well riot and turn this whole place upside down,” Byakuya interrupts.

“That won’t happen if I had anythin’ to do with it. That’s all I came here to ask you guys,” Mondo says.

Kyoko shifts around, her voice quieting as she assumably walks over to somebody, “You’re both talking as if we have all of this time. We very likely might not. We’re approaching a time limit and we still have no answers.”

There’s another moment of complete pause, where the members of the conversation fidget uncomfortably. 

“If things get any more severe, I think we might needa… have a conversation about…” Mondo inhales, as if holding his breath. Waiting for people to disagree. “...Which thirty people we should--”

“No, absolutely not,” Kyoko says, at the same time Byakuya scoffs in utter disgust.

“I’m not tryna be the bad guy! I’m just thinking about--”

“No, he’s right. It sucks, but we’ve gotta have this conversation at some point,” Hajime sighs.

The conversation about the threat. About who to choose if it really came down to it. Miu did not feel comfortable whatsoever with the idea of these five juggling everybody’s lives in their own hands, as if they had all the authority to judge who was worthy of life and who wasn’t. Who was deemed untrustworthy and traitorous and who was deemed innocent and worthy of the next year. That just didn’t feel like a decision she was ready to entrust to these people. 

Kyoko doesn’t reply for a little bit, before she returns to the discussion with a sharp, “Makoto, what do you think?”

Miu has just now realized Makoto was a part of this conversation, and had been for a while now. The Ultimate Hope had been off to the side, listening intently as his partners debated and bickered from in front of him. Miu could feel herself leaning even further against the locked door, waiting with bated breath for his answer. Waiting to tell herself that she had been right to be cold to him and should reconsider her conversation with him because he was willing to throw thirty people’s lives down the drain if it meant freedom. It felt all too familiar, this idea of choosing who to sacrifice for the greater good. Kokichi nearly snickers at how invested she was, but was too distracted himself to fully commit.

Makoto clears his throat uncomfortably, “Well, um… I think we should--”

“Hey, guys, what’s goin’ on over here?”

Miu practically shrieks, flailing her arms spontaneously and attacking the person who snuck up on them with a swift strike to the gut. Yasuhiro grunts at the punch, hunching over and waddling backwards with his arms extended in surrender. It takes the strawberry blonde a few seconds of hyperventilating and Kokichi a few minutes of jubilant laughter before they both settle down.

“J-Jesus _fuck!!_ Warn a bitch, won’t you!?” Miu hisses loudly.

“Ow! Aw, man, that hurt!” Hiro groans, clutching his stomach. 

“Wow, Iruma! Beating up a civilian?” Kokichi gasps, before breaking into a fit of ingenuine sobs, “When will your rain of terror end!?”

“Woah, dude! It’s all good! I know she didn’t mean it!” Obviously this man hasn’t met Kokichi yet, or he would be a lot less convinced of this small boy’s antics. “What’s happening, why are you guys standing around?”

Oh, fuck. He must have been with that group of potheads in the corner of the parking lot. She shouldn’t have underestimated them leaning over and spying on the pair as they eavesdropped into the room. But, to be entirely fair, Hiro wasn’t exactly the scary type. The man was very noticeably uncoordinated, in contrast with his more formal Future Foundation associates, with tan skin and bulky cargo shorts. His massive dreadlocks could kill a man if he were to whip his head around and his glasses were so tiny they barely fit on his nose. He didn’t necessarily _look_ associated with Future Foundation, but Miu knew better than to blatantly disrespect his position.

Kokichi beats her to the punch before she could stutter out an excuse, “We’ve been waiting out here forever. It totally isn’t fair! They were supposed to let us in hours ago….”

“Oh,” Hiro says apologetically, rubbing nervously behind his neck. “Yeah, they were pretty busy in there. Sorry about that, little man!” Miu snorts at the nickname. Kokichi must hate it. “But, uh… Weren’t you guys leaning against the door, or something…?”

“Yep! We got tired and tried to power nap. See?”

Kokichi tries to lean against the door again, closing his eyes and faking a loud snore to demonstrate what they had allegedly done, but Kyoko unlocks the door to the basement and opens it. Kokichi’s eyes widen almost immediately, his snore turning into a yip as he falls through where the door had originally caught him. Miu guffaws rudely at him. 

“May I help you?” Kyoko asks.

Miu immediately chokes on her laughter, _“Hee--_ U-Uh, Is Chihiro here? I need to… ask him a few questions.”

Her ego didn’t exactly want to ask anybody for help, but she had been staring at her laptop for so long that Kaede was starting to urge her to get assistance. To take a break and have a walk. To take it easy, in simpler terms. And everybody knows that Miu Iruma does not simply “take it easy”. 

Kaede had made it pretty clear that it would be best if Miu stopped stressing for at least ten minutes. But Miu was certainly not doing this for herself. She was doing this because Kaede wants her to, and she has to “meet her in the middle if this friendship is going to work”, or whatever the former pianist said all those months ago.

She gestures with her laptop to show that she was being genuine, still avoiding clear eye contact and hunching her shoulders in order to appear much smaller. Kyoko glances her up and down, analyzing her silently. Miu stiffens as if her stillness would assist in convincing her to let her back into the basement, the same one she had trespassed into before. But she still can’t help but spit out a crude joke when she’s nervous.

“J-Jeez, lady. Getting a good eyeful?” She practically mumbles, unconsciously leaning back.

Kyoko locks eyes with the former inventor and for a moment Miu feels as if the detective would summon a bolt of lightning to strike the strawberry blonde down, “...Come in, then. Try not to disturb anybody. Hiro, can you get Aoi? We have important matters to discuss.”

Hiro nods and immediately disappears once more. What a guy.

Kokichi, who had fallen ever so gracefully into the basement, was already making himself at home. Byakuya and that other biker dude glared at him as he puffed his chest to blend in with the crowd of officials. Miu very cautiously shuffles inside the basement, very intentionally avoiding Byakuya’s condescending glare, her head down low as she sifted through the group and towards the heart of the basement. Kyoko points outwards towards where Chihiro was sitting, computer on his lap and an electric circuit behind him. Miu nods a thank you and begins her way over.

“Oh, nice to see you again, Miu!” Makoto waves as she passes him. His smile is strained again. Obviously he was making decisions he didn’t want to be making.

Kokichi stays to talk to them while Miu leaves. 

-=+=-

“You want K1-B0 to read more specific code? Any type of code in particular?” Chihiro questions.

Miu couldn’t exactly say much without revealing she had illegally downloaded information from their computers a while ago, “U-Uh…. What have ya got?”

Chihiro squints at his own computer, using two fingers to scroll through his own files. There were piles upon piles, folders upon folders of coding language Miu wouldn’t be able to decipher if she tried. It’s like she was staring at a bunch of squiggly lines and was expected to understand what they meant. She won’t admit it, but it did kinda make her feel a little stupid.

Chihiro sees her staring and smiles warmly, “You know, if you’re going to use K1-B0 to break down the lock system, I’d be happy to lend you some of Alter Ego's programming. I’m sure you’d be able to configure K1-B0 around it, and it would let you read more coding languages.”

That… wasn’t _exactly_ what Miu was planning on using K1-B0 for, it was more about identifying who was a traitor and who wasn’t going to slaughter her from behind. But breaking down the lock system was another one of her goals, so technically it wasn’t a _huge_ lie. More like a half-truth.

“Give me a few minutes and I’ll find you a USB and some blank cards. We’re trying to place the circuit breaker coding into blank hotel key cards, just so we’re able to unlock doors without connecting computers to them every time,” Chihiro explains, “I’ll get the program to you as soon as I can. I trust you’re able to attach it to K1-B0?”

“You bet your ass,” Miu says confidently, closing her laptop and rising from where she sat.

Chihiro twitches very slightly at the language but otherwise remains timidly cheerful, “O-Okay, cool! I’ll come find you once I’ve got it sorted, alright? And come back whenever! We could really use your help around here.”

She would never admit how much it meant to hear that, “Ehhh, I won’t stay ‘round you plebs for too long. Got my own shit to be doing!”

“A-Alright, I’ll--”

Clamorously interrupting Chihiro before he could finish his statement, the front basement door seemingly bursts open and slams against the wall, a wave of booming noise erupting as soon as the barrier collapsed. Two women, both of whom Miu has never met before in her life, come running in with feverous intent, one chasing after the other. Following them down the staircase at a much slower pace, in a much more fragile state, was that mechanic from Season Two. Kazuichi, right? She’s been meaning to ask him a few questions, but considering… the circumstances… it got swamped by other tasks.

The first one with round glasses stomps forward, arms barely being restrained by the other woman with a bob cut. The first lady marches past where Miu and Chihiro sat without so much as a passing glance, stubbornly intent on reaching the back corner of the basement where the back door resided. Makoto senses her coming like he had eyes on the back of his head, like he could feel someone was angry at him from a mile away. The girls begin talking at once.

The first girl snarls, voice loud, “Where is he!? Where’s that gutter dog!? I’ve got a real bone to pick, I’ll tell you that--”

“Syo, let’s be a little more-- A little more private about this--” The second girl stammers after her, voice also loud in an attempt to cover up her friend’s.

“Were you ever gonna say anything about the dead body!? That seems real important to tell peopl--”

“Woah! Woah, woah, woah--” Makoto quickly joins the conversation, waving his arms to try to silence them. It almost looked like he was fanning a fire.

The basement begins to perk up at the commotion, the Danganronpa officials standing from where they had previously been sitting and flocking around the scene like seagulls. Many begin to murmur and squawk in confusion and alarm, adding to the ever-growing noise of the basement. Kazuichi stumbles into the room, face filled with undeniable dread and horror, the right side of clothes just barely hiding a hideous splotch of dark crimson. His skin is deathly pale, a stark white color, his eyes wide and unblinking. His face contorts from pure shock into an ungodly amount of rage.

“This-- This is your fault!” He hisses through his pointed teeth, jabbing his finger in Makoto’s direction. “Y-You told us to take down those cameras, you told us to-- Two people are _dead!!_ It killed them, it _killed two people--!”_

“Excuse you!? It killed _one_ person. Hope Boy over here was trying to hide him in the medical tent, isn’t that right!?” Syo snaps her head back to the gaping Makoto, her gaze razor-like and dangerous. “A kid walked into that tent. A _kid_ walked into--”

Makoto blanches, “A kid…? Oh, god. Wait, who--?”

“Hell if I know, but I know Toko’s right _pissed_ about it!”

“What was her-- Uh, um, Himi…? Himiko…?” Komaru was throwing out names as people continued to talk over her.

“Himiko?” Kokichi asks, waddling out from behind a corner. His tone sounded much more somber, not like the overly-cheerful, passive-aggressive person he always puts on just to spite Miu. He sounded genuine for a brief second. Like he was actually concerned. 

Miu emerges from where she had been standing, suddenly very on guard and alert. She unintentionally steps in front of the exit, blocking the rowdy group of protesters in as they continue to curse the Future Foundation. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage. Maybe she should grab her laptop and run for it. She was always the runner in these fight or flight scenarios.

“No, nobody--” Kazuichi has to gulp down a gasp of air before he continues, hands quite literally vibrating at his sides. “Y-Y-You told us to check the cameras, and Eiji-- Eiji tried to take them down and they _shot_ him! They fucking _shot him!_ And- And someone ran in front of me and got shot too--! Th-They tried to _kill me,_ man--!”

“Th-That’s three…” Komaru breathes, trembling hands covering her mouth, “That’s three people…!”

 _“What!?”_ Miu shouts. Makoto shoots his head towards her, only just noticing that she was there.

“Everybody, calm down,” Kyoko demands, moving in the middle of the group in an attempt to halt the argument. The rest of her group walk after her. “Let’s be rational about this, we don’t have to--”

“Fuck that, Kyoko! We’re _past_ rational!” Mondo roars, _“This_ is what I’m saying, we don’t have _time_ to pretend everything’s fine! We’re runnin’ out of goddamn time!!”

“Running… out of time…?” Miu echoes.

Makoto’s smile is long gone, suddenly replaced by a very stern frown. His eyebrows furrow immensely, his movement abruptly strong and jagged.

“Let’s get Season 53 out of here. In fact--” He turns himself around, aiming himself at the largest majority of people. _“Future Foundation only!”_

After an initial pause, many people fidgeting in confusion of what they should do, Mondo steps forward and shouts, “You heard the man! _Get the fuck outta here!”_

People yell and rumble, shuffling to leave but still desperate for answers. Miu gets swept in the crowd with Chihiro, and suddenly they were both running up the stairs and out of the basement, perking their ears to grasp what little of the conversation between the Future Foundation members they could. Kokichi somehow teleports in front of Miu and sprints down the hallway as soon as he leaves the basement’s staircase, vanishing around a corner.

“We’re running out of time,” Kazuichi’s voice echoes from down the stairwell. “We’re running out of _time!!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 27/30
> 
> poggers
> 
> stay safe!! <3


	16. why do we bother to stay? / why are you running away?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> one last vent meeting before the time limit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just had the horrifying realization that this entire thing is an among us reference............................... 30 imposters among us............ THE VENTS.................... i am unoriginal and a fool
> 
> also thank you so so much for reading, ily have a nice day!!! <33

“Alright. Consider this meeting adorned,” Himiko begins, banging her pencil-gavel against the floor of the vents.

“Adjourned,” Korekiyo corrects. “And it has only begun. Adjourned means it would end now, to presumably be resumed later.”

“You get what I mean,” She shrugs, once more banging the pencil-gavel. “First order of business: Team name.”

Korekiyo shifts himself around, attempting to find a more comfortable spot before settling entirely. He slumps down awkwardly just so his head doesn’t hit the ceiling, notebook propped up against his legs. Himiko had taken his pencil just to use as her make-shift gavel before handing it back to him. Her notes were on her phone, resting politely in her lap. She had barely any time to write anything down; She was way too busy explaining everything slowly to Tenko and Angie, hugging them both tightly and making rather empty promises that she was okay, that she’s dealt with dead bodies before, that all three of them would be totally fine. The rest of that encounter was spent braiding Angie’s hair and apologizing over ruining her art class.

Tenko had told them she had somewhere she needed to be, so Himiko used her independence to roam around and take notes. Hours pass, intermingled with joining her girlfriend to try out some booths and breaking off to do some solo exploring. It seems all three members of the redhead’s friend group were perfectly content with letting each other explore, but after the whole “I saw a dead body in the medical tent” thing, Angie and Tenko have started texting to make sure everybody was fine. That nobody managed to stumble across another dead body, while they were at it.

Korekiyo had gotten incredibly good at hiding in the shadows. He wasn’t completely invisible, in fact Himiko pretty frequently noticed him lurking behind doors and running into walls when he became too distracted with his notebook, but despite this they haven’t spoken or even associated themselves with each other during the few hours they were separated. He honestly seemed pretty peeved after the last meeting and Himiko wouldn’t be caught dead within a ten foot radius of him while Tenko was around. 

Himiko checks her phone’s clock. 6:30 PM. Dinner had already started, but her class all agreed to wait until 7 to go to dinner as a group. Plus, Miu was going to the basement to ask a question, or something. She’d been in her room for hours on end, according to Kaede, so nobody was allowed to rush the former inventor as she took a walk. 

“Request to bypass this order of business?” Korekiyo pleads, raising his right hand formally. “This seems unnecessary.”

“Overruled. I won’t share anything until you decide on a team name,” Himiko disagrees, needlessly banging her gavel.

The former anthropologist sighs, closing his golden eyes. He was clearly attempting to create a team name, the corners of his eyes crinkling in deep concentration. It looked as if he had many initial names coming to mind, but was overruling them behind his eyelids before any words had been spoken to Himiko. The redhead did the same occasionally: bypassed an initial thought in fear that it was too prewritten, too much of the Ultimate Mage, too _in-character._ Lord knows how many magic-themed team names she had come up with before passing the responsibility off to Korekiyo.

The former anthropologist rubs his fingers against the turtleneck of his black shirt, golden irises meeting copper.

“...Blue Team,” He finally decides. There’s a beat of silence that passes between them, with Himiko squinting her eyes in slight confusion.

“...Come on, really…? Not even _Red_ Team?”

She gestures at her hair, grabbing at her red shorts and waving her arms in the direction of her general color scheme. Korekiyo stares sardonically at her, eyes narrowed and clearly quite tired. 

“I quite like blue. I find that it’s a soothing color,” He answers with little flair. “Red has more negative connotations than it does positive. But if you’d prefer to be the Red Team, I very candidly could not care less.”

Even Himiko was able to grasp that Korekiyo really didn’t want to spend all of this time on a team name, “...Whatever, I guess.”

“Shall we move on? We only have limited time.”

“Yeah.”

Both of them stare silently, expecting the other to begin throwing information out. This was always going to be awkward. Neither of them were necessarily the most socially-inclined people. It takes a solid beat for Himiko to finally take initiative. 

“I couldn’t get much from Sakine or Kokichi. It was like both of them disappeared...” She begins, rubbing awkwardly at her elbow.

Korekiyo nods gratefully, thankful for the starter, before taking note of her words in his journal, “That, or they are intentionally avoiding you.”

The words were a little cold, but otherwise didn’t appear downright malicious. Himiko didn’t really like to think about those two intentionally avoiding her. She wasn’t too sure why they would do that, unless they’ve already caught on that she’s trying to find out more information. But even then, Kokichi was one of her closest friends, so if he was avoiding her then??? Screw him???

“Why would they do that?” She asks for clarification.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve already discerned that Kokichi and Sakine have been in cahoots--” She hadn’t really-- it was only a guess-- but she won’t interrupt him to tell him that, “And if they _are_ avoiding you, it could mean you’re associated somehow. However, it is more likely that you just couldn’t manage to find them. Anything else?”

“Where’d you hear this? ...You seem really certain.”

“I was expecting this question, and have translated what I remember of their conversation. In Japanese, of course. Here.” 

He delicately hands over his journal, having flipped to a previous page. It’s a transcript of a conversation, one that pretty clearly describes Kokichi and Sakine collaborating to keep some form of secret. Both of them speak as if they were joking around, their dialogue unceremonious and rather casual, yet still holding serious implications. If Kokichi hadn’t explicitly stated that she was sharing information, it would seem more like an informal conversation or a tiny argument. With how perky and savvy Sakine usually presented herself, it was a little hard to see any sort of underlying malice.

Korekiyo adjusts his dark long coat back over his shoulder, once again fidgeting to find a more comfortable position, “Take her claim of knowing 524 different timelines lightly. I believe she figured out I was eavesdropping and was attempting to frighten me.”

“...I mean, these _are_ Ultimates… she could be the Ultimate Seer, or something…”

“It appeared much more analytical than it did supernatural,” He says, “Perhaps she _was_ able to predict all of those timelines during the simulation, but I sincerely doubt that talent has transposed to the real world.” 

“Nyeh… so you’re saying she’s not as smart as she sounds?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“...So she’s smarter than she’s trying to make herself seem?”

“I didn’t say that, either.”

 _Then what are you saying?_ She practically wants to snap, but her mouth seals closed before the phrase escapes.

Himiko hums, nodding at the journal before gingerly handing it back. She passed it to him as if the entire thing would fall apart, crumble in her hands. Obviously it was valuable to the boy, but it was also very obviously worn out. A few pages had been ripped out and taped back in, like he had torn them in a fit of rage and regretted it later. Himiko’s “notebook” (phone) didn’t look half as used or worn.

“The text came from inside the building,” She continues on to the next subject. Korekiyo flips to a new page in his journal. “...I learned that in art class.” 

She intentionally leaves out that Tenko told her. He doesn’t need to know that. 

“...Very interesting,” He chimes, focused intently on his journal. 

The redhead shifts around, checking outside of the grate as a group of participants shuffle past, “Um... also, a few people think it’s Danganronpa that’s doing this.”

“I’ve been hearing the opposite. Many people with whom I overheard expressed that they believed it was the Anti-Hope League.”

Himiko shrugs, her nose twitching, “Might be too early to tell.”

“It might,” He agrees.

Korekiyo exhales, once more bringing the vents to a tense silence. A minute or so passes where he documents everything he knows in his journal, with Himiko following his lead and typing in her notes. She’s definitely not as fast as he is, in fact it takes her much longer than the average person to type a full sentence with her fingers.

“Since Sakine and Kokichi are undoubtedly unavailable, perhaps we should ask around about the AHL and Danganronpa,” The taller man suggests. “We’ve been given a considerable amount of time in between dinner and the impromptu meeting we have to attend. Of course, this is only if we plan on meeting again.”

Himiko wasn’t sure if either of them necessarily _wanted_ to see each other again that day. In fact, the redhead was planning on going to dinner, mucking around for a few hours, attending that quick meeting, and then immediately hiding in her room and sleeping until everything blows over. Korekiyo probably wanted to do the same: Curl up in his room with no interaction with the outside until the threat was over and done with. It was basically an unspoken agreement between them that they wouldn’t meet again until tomorrow. That they didn’t have enough information to call another meeting today.

In between his words, Korekiyo reaches up and tugs his mask forward, allowing fresh air to enter through the gap it creates. For a moment, a very fleeting moment, Himiko was expecting him to reach up and take his mask off entirely, a completely out of character thing for this boy to do, if her experience in the killing game told her anything. Even him lifting the mask slightly away from his face for more air felt pretty shocking for him to do. Obviously he wasn’t as strict with the accessory as he had been previously. 

Himiko finds herself staring quite rudely at him as he pulls the mask away from his face. His voice sounds much clearer. It’s the most clear he has ever sounded. Well, other than when he was pulling that whole sister charade… And on that note, was he still wearing that makeup? If she were to peek around the mask, would she find that same red color on his lips? If that was the case, did he still hear... _her?_ This man was an enigma. An absolute cryptid. A small gesture such as adjusting his mask for more fresh air seemed to pique Himiko’s curiosity immensely. 

“As well as this, I’ve also heard rumor that they are planning on recruiting an enforcement team--”

Himiko just couldn’t seem to let that mask thing go, “Why don’t you just take it off…? If it’s too hard for you to breath…”

Korekiyo pauses mid-sentence, hand still over his mask as he pulls it forward, almost as if freezing entirely. He stares at Himiko for a few seconds, internally debating whether he should divert their otherwise business-driven conversation in order to discuss the significance behind his facial accessory. 

Considering how serious and rather unemotional this meeting has been, probably thanks to the rather rocky terms of which they agreed to work together, it made sense that Himiko’s comment threw him off. The redhead hadn’t intended it to mean much other than a curious question, a question of whether he was actually comfortable wearing that thing all of the time. A question of why he didn’t just take it off, considering he was already pulling it away from his face and prodding at it much more than he had in the simulation. Korekiyo was obviously only expecting to jump into their “conference room”, throw out the information he knows, and leave.

It was clear he was trying not to engage in small talk. Or, if it _really_ came down to it, a conversation that ventured further into their unresolved traumas and mental damage. As fun as that sounded, neither of them were close enough with each other to even begin a discussion like that.

“...As I was saying, they are planning on recruiting an enforcement team,” He continues, releasing the mask so it snaps back over his mouth. He dismisses the question as if Himiko had never asked it in the first place, “I have little details regarding this rumor, and for the moment it seems to be inoperative.” 

“Sorry... I was just curious…” Himiko mumbles, recognizing he was ignoring the question and quickly moving to apologize.

“Maybe one day we could become close enough that I would elaborate, but do understand that it’s not necessarily information I like to share. Apologies,” He scribbles more things down, this time noticeably more rushed. “...But if you must know, I am perfectly capable of taking it off. It is only a matter of comfortability.” 

“...Oh.” 

Damn it, she’s losing him!! He’s obviously uneasy (they both are-- Himiko can’t stop feeling guilty about Tenko and Angie every five seconds), but she just can’t find herself garnering sympathy for him. Not in a malicious way, of course. Everything about this man basically _screamed_ that he needed sympathy, but it was never in Himiko’s nature to emotionally connect that way. She didn’t hold the same emotional intelligence as Tenko did, just wasn’t about to understand what people were feeling. All she could do to relate to him was empathize through personal experience.

“I have this sweater with a bunny on it,” She begins describing, picking at her shirt as if visualizing the item of clothing on her body. “Sometimes I wear it for days. It’s just really comfy and safe,” Korekiyo tilts his head to the side briefly, as if acknowledging her story with piqued interest. Himiko grits her teeth, shrugging cheekily, “...Kinda? Sorta? Is that what you feel like?”

“...Maybe,” He answers. “It’s very complicated.”

“Yucky,” Himiko responds.

After finishing with his new notes, he slams the journal closed and bangs his pencil-gavel against the vents in a manner similar to what Himiko had done before, “On account of all of our information being shared, I declare this meeting dismissed.”

“Meeting _adjourned._ Because we’re going to come back, _”_ Himiko corrects smugly. Her tiny joke earns an exhale of laughter from the boy, who begins reaching for the grate, “...Hey, wait. I’ve got one more question.”

“Yes?” He hums, leaning back before he was able to escape.

Himiko didn’t actually think this one through. The “I’ve got one more question” trick always seemed to work whenever she needed more time, but once she’s been given more time she comes up blank.

“Um… What do you think is going to happen at the time limit?”

That’s a reasonable question. Considering they have about five hours until the time limit expires, four if the time limit was to go off at 11 PM instead of midnight, it was a fairly relevant topic of discussion. It wasn’t entirely emotional and heartfelt, seeing how Korekiyo didn’t seem to want to engage in anything sincere, but wasn’t strictly business-only. The rest of their class had avoided talking about the time limit like the plague, and had steered the topic of discussion away at any mention of impending doom. Himiko knows that once the time limit drew nearer she would undoubtedly grow anxious, but for now the feeling was muted. Muted and tired. Despite it only being 6:45 PM, the redhead was already growing exhausted. It was past her bedtime. 

Korekiyo inhales and exhales, bobbing his head in thought as he stared upwards at the ceiling. He was crouching on his feet, clearly ready to move out of their hiding spot, but has noticeably halted.

“Nothing good,” He answers honestly, meeting Himiko’s copper eyes. “...I believe we have already made fatal errors, and unless somebody is able to fulfill the requirements by the deadline, we may just--” He shrugs, almost sarcastically. “--Have it coming.”

Himiko never thought of not killing thirty people as “fatal errors”. It’s already been proven that whoever is running this show is willing to kill to get their way, so the punishment might just be straight up slaughter. But is that really worth thirty people’s lives? Himiko can’t be entirely certain until the time limit goes out. That was the horrible part of it all. She will never know how severe this time limit is until it finally ticks over, until the consequences are laid out in front of everybody.

“Are you scared of dying?” She asks. It didn’t sound dark in her mind, but the question most definitely did when she repeated it out loud.

Korekiyo blinks twice, “That’s rather… morbid. Are you?”

“N-No! I'm not scared of anything... I'm going to live for a hundred million more years.”

“Kehehe. Well… Suddenly saying that I’m afraid of dying makes me sound fairly…” He pauses, eyes shifting almost nervously over to the side. “Hypocritical, I suppose,” Another beat of silence, before he adds a rather informal, “But I guess so, yeah. It’s a little scary.”

“Yeah…” Himiko echoes, playing unconsciously with the ends of her shoelaces.

Even more silence. Himiko reckons that most of their conversations are more empty spaces of pure quiet than they are actual discussion, the majority of their time spent together just them sitting across from each other and awkwardly avoiding each other gazes. This time the silence felt much more understood. They sat in pure acknowledgement, both of their minds clearly running elsewhere as they concluded the meeting. 

"I wish I had more to tell everybody..." She admits, chin in her knees. "I want to be useful to my friends..."

Korekiyo only nods.

The redhead flicks at the ends of her shoes before muttering a silent, “Uhhh… hey. If we don’t see each other again today, then, um…” 

Himiko throws up a flashy thumbs up. Kaito always used to throw the same gesture to her friend group whenever they needed encouragement. On the top of the slide, Kaito was always there with an encouraging thumbs up. And when you inevitably crash and burn at the bottom, he was there to pick you up with the same gesture. Himiko does it no justice, but still mimics it to the best of her awkward, awkward abilities.

She was really hoping her strained smile covered the fact her hand was starting to shake.

“Don’t die,” The redhead completes.

Korekiyo can’t help but chuckle at the sentiment, tittering behind his mask like he always does. That same laughter that comes from the roof of his mouth and whistles through his teeth.

“And vice versa,” He wishes back, replicating her gesture of encouragement. “Stay safe.”

He disappears out of the vents and immediately returns to the shadows. 

-=+=-

“I spy with my little eye…” Himiko purses her lips, analyzing the hallway they were walking down. “Something red! Make it quick, or you’re going to pass it!”

“Ah! Uh, uh, uh--” Tenko exclaims, her head whipping around furiously as she searches for anything red. “Wait--! Hold on, it’s--”

“You’re running out of time!” Himiko quips, purposefully speeding up so Tenko is forced to shuffle after her rapidly. “Quick, babe, or you’re gonna pass it--”

“Slow down! This isn’t fair!!” Tenko playfully pleads, grabbing onto Himiko’s arm and gently pulling her back so she was able to analyze the hallway more thoroughly. 

The redhead giggles and pulls against her, “dragging” her down the hall and towards the dining hall. Tenko laughs and yanks back, planting her feet against the ground and making exaggerated motions to convey how hard she was looking. Participants pass the couple as Himiko tugs uselessly against her girlfriend’s arm, soon giving up that tactic and starting to climb on her back to interfere with her attempts at winning the game.

“Carpet!!” Tenko yells out, chuckling as she swats the redhead’s hands out of her eyes.

“Nope!”

The former aikido master grabs Himiko as she resumes her standing position, holding the smaller girl on her back as they continue their walk towards the dining hall. Himiko accepts her resuming their walk and returns the favor by removing her hands from the brunette’s eyes. 

“Is it that statue thing? It’s kinda… reddish…” Tenko guesses with a suppressed giggle.

Himiko squints at it as it passes the pair, “Tenko, that’s purple.”

“Yeah…! It’s kinda!! Red--?”

“We’ve passed it, already... There was a lock on a door that was red.”

“Aw, man!! You’re too good at this, Mimi!”

"Nyeh, I am simply unbeatable!"

Himiko emits a soft hum, leaning her chin on Tenko’s shoulder as they voyage towards their destination. Other participants walk behind and in front of them, all nervously bustling and whispering amongst each other, their movements jagged and sharp. They flinch every time something moves too quickly and noticeably tense when someone even so much as breathes too loudly. Dinner was undoubtedly going to be filled with restless participants, with people anxiously awaiting for the time limit to reach its end.

Tenko had been the same. Or, at least, had looked the same when Himiko noticed her from down the hall. The brunette was standing anxiously, right foot tapping repetitively against the carpet as she stared down at her phone, fingers tapping unconsciously against its screen. As soon as she noticed Himiko walking down to join her, she immediately smiled and shoved her phone into her back pocket. They’ve been walking ever since.

Himiko can’t see Tenko’s face clearly from where her head was positioned against the brunette’s shoulder, but judging by the silence they were both undeniably dreading what was coming. And sure, it was all well to hide behind niceness and lame excuses, but when it really came down to it, neither of them knew what was going to happen. There was probably only _one_ person who knew exactly what would happen once the time limit runs out, and it would take Himiko and Korekiyo a few days, much more information, and an astounding amount of character development before either of them found out who that was.

They approach the hallway that leads to the dining hall in total silence. Participants walk past. There’s a sudden horde of them, most of them bleating and stammering to each other with serious alarm and restlessness. Most of them turn into the dining hall and immediately run towards their class with newfound information. Others shuffle hurriedly past Tenko and Himiko, nervously glancing behind them with murmurs of time limits and Future Foundation and Kazuichi and the number three.

Among this group of people was Miu Iruma.

It was pretty clear she wasn’t happy. She was staring directly at the floor, eyes glazed over and unfocused, her lips pressed into a thin line. There’s something so defeatist in the contrast between her normally upright, over-confident strides that foreshadows her personality as soon as she enters a room compared to the hollow, almost robotic steps she was taking now. She approaches the pair with little confidence, head still sunken to the floor. 

“Hey, Miu!” Tenko greets fondly, sparing the strawberry-blonde a warm wave.

Miu walks directly past without acknowledging them.

Himiko turns around from where she sits on Tenko’s back and quickly hops off, facing the former inventor as she continues her walk away from the dining hall, “Miu…? ...Dining hall’s this way.”

It appears the strawberry blonde managed to hear Himiko’s voice, which was a little weird considering how mousy it was compared to the booming vocal chords of her girlfriend, but nevertheless it worked. Miu halts abruptly, spends a few seconds staring outwards, before she flips around to face them.

She obviously wants to talk, and by the sudden harshness implied in her facial expression it’s clear she wants to yell at them, but nothing emerges from her mouth. Her shaky right finger was raised and ready to accuse, but all she managed to do was glare at them.

Miu says something, but is so far away and so quiet that Himiko can’t hear her. But the former inventor pointed directly at the redhead, so it was clear she was pissed at her.

“Um… Are you going to the dining hall?” Tenko asks, in a light attempt to steer the girl in the right direction.

Miu’s head snaps towards the brunette with so much ferocity Himiko could almost hear it. Her lips part and it’s clear her teeth were gritted, but her eyes weren’t angry enough to match it.

“Both of you. It’s fuckin’ both--!” They’re the first words she says that are loud enough for the pair to hear, before she closes her eyes in a brief moment of shutdown. Himiko’s face scrunches at the unexplained phrasing. “No. No, I-I’m not goin’ anywhere near that cesspool.” 

“...Is everything alright?” Tenko asks, cautiously stepping forward. Miu steps back, as if they were identical sides of a magnet that were repelling each other. “We all have to meet in the dining hall! Kaede said--”

“I heard what she said, flatass! I don’t care!” Miu spits with unnecessary venom, taking a defiant step forward. As soon as her confidence arrives, it seems to crumble just as instantly, “B-But don’t tell her I said that--! Geez, everybody’s gangin’ up on me today…!”

Himiko tilts her head to the side, “...What? Nobody’s-- Okay, Miu. But still, we all need to stay together. ‘Specially with the time limit coming up, and everything---”

“Don’t _remind_ me!!” She hisses, suddenly very worked up. “F-Fuck, everything is just--! I’m not coming to dinner, so stop _forcing_ me!”

“We’re not _forcing_ you to do anything,” Himiko replies, as Tenko checks who is entering the dining hall. The brunette was obviously concerned about the former inventor, and was making sure nobody else in the dining hall was acting too suspicious. “What’s going on?”

“Since when do you care, donkey lips!? I-I-I’ve got too much work to do, that’s all!!” She seems to space out at those last few words, taking shaky steps backwards as her eyes glaze over once more. “I’ve got so much work to do.”

Himiko sours at the nickname, cheeks beginning to grow hot, “Fine. I’ll let people know, or whatever…”

A moment of silence passes by both of them, a moment of very tense quiet. Himiko and Miu were never really friends, and it always showed whenever they ended up talking to each other. The redhead can’t really remember a conversation with the former inventor that didn’t end up just being straight up bullying from the strawberry blonde's side. Her personality-- Err, her _written_ personality, at least-- was just like that: Brash, arrogant, relatively unsocial. Always finding innuendo in things that shouldn’t have innuendo. She had once made a “that’s what she said” out of a picture of a cute cat Himiko had found while on her day pass out of the Danganronpa hospital. In Miu’s defense, the redhead probably should have just used the word “cat” instead of lengthening it to “pussycat”. 

But the other thing about Miu, Himiko reckons, was that she was pretty predictable emotions-wise. Sure, her rather crass and abrasive personality could be seen as entirely out of line and unpredictable, but once you get used to her you notice the patterns. She pushes when you pull and cowers once you even think about pushing her back. She always seems to take things to the extreme, whether that be hatred or the opposite end of the spectrum. At least, that’s what Himiko can see. It’s all Miu’s _shown_ Himiko, anyways. All the redhead had to go off of was patterns.

So when Miu points her finger, plants her feet in the ground, and states, “I know about the medical tent,” Himiko knows that they weren’t about to get along during this convention. Which was okay, she supposes. Again, they weren’t friends. And usually when Miu holds a grudge against you, it lasts for quite some time. Himiko knows _all about_ her and Kokichi’s feud, which is just another reason why the redhead has been sneakily avoiding the former inventor this entire time.

“Wh-What? What do you mean?” The redhead asks, as if she didn’t know what she was talking about. She did. She _did_ know what she was talking about, and Tenko did as well. But she’ll feign innocence. What dead body? Himiko knew nothing about a dead body, that’s for sure.

Miu didn’t take too kindly to her acting, however, “D-Don’t pull a fast one on me, bitch!! I don’t trust you as far as I can fuckin’ throw you!! Got my eye on you, dwarf!”

“You didn’t have to add ‘dwarf’...” Himiko mumbles, folding her arms across her chest.

“Got my eye on both of you!!” The former inventor yells over her shoulder as she walks away, her confident strut suddenly back. Despite her overzealous air, there was something very desperate behind her demeanor. Something frightened. “Buncha traitors!!!”

“You don’t have to be so mean…!” Himiko calls back, but Miu disappears around a corner before she could get a reaction. 

Tenko returns to Himiko’s side, eyebrows furrowed as they both watch the strawberry blonde leave. Himiko can’t help but wonder what’s gotten Miu in such an awful mood. And she also can’t help but wonder who told her about the body in the medical tent, because the redhead sure as hell didn’t. Considering how Miu is one of the last people Himiko would tell (seeing as Korekiyo already knows, a fact that still baffles the former mage), it seems a little weird how she knows this information. Maybe the two other girls from the art class had been sharing that there is a dead body in the medical tent to anybody who would listen.

“...Don’t listen to her, okay? She seems upset,” Tenko states, resting a protective arm against Himiko’s shoulder as they turn towards the dining hall. “Let’s just… Give her a minute, I guess. I’ll talk to her once she’s calmed down.”

Himiko nods, arms still crossed as she pouts, “...I’m not _that_ short.”

“...Yeah! You’re-- Uh, yeah, totally--”

“You’re lying? You’re lying to your girlfriend? You’re standing here, in front of your girlfriend, and lying?” She fakes a sob. “I thought I knew you…..”

“I didn’t-- No, wait--!” Tenko can’t help but start laughing, and soon enough they’re both giggling again as they enter the room. “I would never lie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 27/30
> 
> last chapter before the time limit goes off, place your bets of what's going to happen below


	17. bang! bang! bang! (here we go)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TASK ONE OVER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> should i do trigger warnings or will that just spoil the chapter?? there's mention of death, nothing too detailed
> 
> anyways, enjoy! drink some water today!! <33

10:45 PM was way past Himiko’s bed time.

She was already in her pajamas. Himiko had gone to dinner, napped for a few hours, and then begrudgingly slinked down to the dining hall once more in an oversized graphic tee and tiger-striped sweatpants. It wasn’t as if she stood out too much, either; The majority of participants gathered were also wearing informal clothing, expecting to go to bed immediately after this meeting was over. 

The energy in the reception was off the charts. Participants jittered around nervously, their words sharp and jagged, all of them restless to move. The time limit was arriving, assuming it was 11 PM, and nobody was ready nor prepared for what could possibly be in store. Himiko’s class could barely stand still. All of them were noticeably terrified. Gonta and Angie were bright and energetic one moment, and then unfocused and blank the next. Rantaro and Kirumi were chatting amongst each other, civilized but still remarkably on edge. Every time Himiko blinked, Kokichi was in another area of the reception hall. He was practically bouncing off of the walls.

Himiko is tired, a feeling which was always a struggle for her. Her laziness always felt prewritten, like her sleepiness was a quirky character trait that was given to her for the sake of a story, so it was in the redhead’s best interest to avoid acting or feeling tired. But if she didn’t occupy herself with being tired, then her mind wanders to other things. Like death and time limits and the inevitable seeming a little too unavoidable. And then her hands start shaking and a chilly feeling scrapes up her spine and into her chest. Anxiety looms over her and threatens to crush her. That, and--

“I need to use the potty,” She mumbles in an attempt at light humor, rubbing at her eyes. “W-When does this end…?”

“Woah, Himiko, you’re potty trained?” Kokichi gasps, reappearing next to the group before immediately disappearing again. Himiko sputters a remark after him but he’s too far away before anything comprehensive leaves her mouth.

“We’ve only just got here…” Shuichi chuckles. He’s in grey sweatpants and a dark magenta hoodie, his hands fidgeting against the hoodie’s strings nervously. He’s been fiddling with his clothes anxiously ever since arriving, “I’m sure Makoto will talk to us soon.”

Himiko checks the clock on her phone, “Haven’t you been talking with Kyoko? Two detective peas in a pod?”

“Hah, I don’t think I’m much of a detective in comparison… But yeah, a little. Just about life after the killing game, though. Future Foundation isn’t really... saying much about the situation.”

“Well, they’re public figures, I guess. People expect them to--”

“Lie?” Shuichi titters.

“...I was gonna say ‘be encouraging’, but that too, I guess.”

The boy smiles at her, strained and clearly tense, before his lips fall to a neutral frown. He nervously stands in silence, the conversation over and the nerves reaching the pair again.

Himiko was shaking, suddenly very cold. Or nervous. Either way, her body was trembling uncontrollably, a sharp chill growing from her chest. She should have grabbed a jacket, but ended up leaving her hotel room without one. The hairs on her arms have raised, goosebumps running directly up her body. She needed some sort of cover. 

Tenko was chatting nonstop with a participant from Season 52, a female boxer who was equally as jittery and restless, and neither of them were wearing jackets. Kirumi kinda scared Himiko a little bit, if she was going to be honest, so she would not be asking for the former maid’s sweater. 

Shuichi notices Himiko hugging her own trembling arms and hums in sympathy.

“I’d offer you my hoodie, but I’m not wearing anything under this,” He says apologetically. 

“I-I’m not cold,” Himiko lies through her teeth.

“Then why are you shaking?”

“...Th-That’s none of your business.”

Shuichi exhales in muted laughter, “Gonta has a jacket on. I’m sure if you ask nicely he’ll let you wear it.”

Himiko is pretty sure she would drown in any article of clothing that fit Gonta, but maybe she should take this tiny distraction to move around. A nice walk will be good for releasing some nerves, at least before the redhead becomes so stationary that her shakiness overrides her limbs and sends her to the floor. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing? If she suddenly collapses to the ground in front of a thousand other people? 

The sheer amount of participants was probably also a driving factor of why Himiko was so incredibly nervous. The officials had packed them into the reception, a place with no chairs or stage, just to avoid the possibility of another incident. The one-way entrance also allowed Danganronpa officials to check who was attending and who was skipping out, who was making themself known and who was hiding away. Himiko had originally been worried about who they were trying to keep out, but now she was starting to think they were keeping people _in._

Himiko waddles over to her girlfriend and tugs on her shirt sleeve, motioning the brunette with her as the redhead swims through the crowd. Tenko serves as quite the efficient barrier, her tall and muscular stature intimidating those who would otherwise remain unphased by Himiko’s tiny and stick-like demeanor. The wall of noise that slams into the pair as they move further into the crowd sounded as if they were walking directly into crashing waves. The horde suffocated her, drowned her until she couldn’t help but shake and sputter in the nerves of it all. Fitting, considering Himiko’s rather irrational distaste for the deep ocean.

Gonta and Angie were on the opposite end of the hall. Angie sat on one of the receptionist desks and still wasn’t tall enough to reach Gonta’s eye-level. Tenko was actually the one to point them out, considering how Himiko’s height rendered her view useless in this crowd of people.

She really had to stop using that word. _Useless._ It was seriously starting to bum her out.

“No, listen--” Somehow the redhead could overhear a nearby conversation. It was Akane, clad in a massive tee shirt, the front of which had been shoved into pajama shorts. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she seemed rather calm despite the situation. “Every season has a Big Titty Girl. It’s a staple of Danganronpa, they need someone to play dumb and be hot for the ratings.”

“Huh?” Replies the girl she was talking to, a smaller tan woman with brown hair tossed into a ponytail. “My season didn’t have one…”

Akane's focus drifts away for a moment, almost as if she was thinking about it for a second, “...Aoi-- Oh, hey, you were looking for Season 53, right?”

It seems they’ve noticed Himiko and Tenko beginning to pass. Aoi brightens, a contrast to her noticeably disheveled demeanor, and skips over towards the pair before either of them have the chance to escape. Himiko shoves her vibrating hands behind her back, her tiny smile twitchy and noticeably insincere. 

“You guys are from Season 53, yeah? I’m Aoi Asahina, Future Foundation!” Aoi introduces. “I was wondering if either of you have seen Miu Iruma? I have something to give her.”

Uck. Miu. Himiko hasn’t seen her since their mini confrontation before dinner, and it’s left a sour taste in the redhead’s mouth ever since. Miu always likes to disappear randomly. Even before the hotel and this convention, Kaede’s mentioned before that Miu always worries her with her spontaneous disappearances. Sometimes the former inventor was completely trashed at a club and away from her phone while other times she was out of town entirely, having taken the bus and refused to get off at her stop. The strawberry blonde always had her own agenda, and if that meant running away for an hour or even a day, then she’d do it.

Himiko would never, _ever_ mention it to Miu, but her and Kokichi had that in common. 

“Haven’t seen her yet. She didn’t come to dinner,” Tenko answers, craning her head over the crowd to search for the former inventor. “What did you need to give her?”

“Oh! Chihiro gave me this for her,” Aoi holds up a flashdrive in one hand and a bunch of hotel keycards in the other. “He said she needed it, or something?”

 _What could Miu possibly need that for?_

To the best of her ability, Himiko squinted through the ocean of legs, her arms still vibrating at her sides as she huddled close to Tenko. If she was to tilt her neck and angle her body to the side, she was _just_ able to locate the front entrance. Kaede and Miu had only just entered, the former pianist signing both of them in with the Danganronpa official who greeted them under the archway. Miu’s eyes were wide and alert, her attention glued to every corner of the room, to every person who even so much as flinched in her direction.

Himiko follows her gaze to the roof and finds nothing of particular interest. The cameras were round, unlike the ones in the Black Rose Ballroom, and if the chandelier was to fall it would be far away from the former mage. Miu’s panic and startling alarm was doing nothing but freak the redhead out.

“She’s just arrived,” Himiko says, pointing Aoi and Akane in her direction. Maybe the swimmer and gymnast duo will calm the former inventor down before she runs up to the redhead and starts calling her a traitor again. “Over there, see?”

Aoi simpers, “Awesome! Oh, also, I thiiinnkkk Makoto wants to talk with you? Maybe tomorrow morning? Nothing bad, I’m sure!!”

Was it about her season? Was it about the dead body? Himiko doesn’t know what Makoto could possibly want from her, but he will have to pry the redhead out of her bed himself if he wants to chat in the morning.

“O-Okay… Thank you,” The redhead mutters.

“A-Are we just supposed to stand here?” Tenko asks before the Future Foundation member could leave. “It’s getting pretty close to curfew… A-And--”

“Makoto has been chatting with people for a while now, I’m sure he’s just running a little late!” Aoi replies. “We’re only keeping you here so we know everybody’s safe, that’s all.”

“Plus, we can run away a lot easier since there’s no doors that can be locked,” Akane says, scratching the inside of her ear.

The Ultimate Swimmer’s cheeks puff out slightly, “We won’t be running away, and this won’t take long. We’ll be allowed to leave soon!”

“After 11 PM?” Himiko mumbles, voice wavering.

Aoi blinks, her smile soft and almost uncertain, “...After 11 PM. Um… It was nice talking to you guys, but I’m gonna go give Miu this stuff now!”

“Okay, bye…”

The swimmer scampers off towards the front of the reception hall. Akane bites at her pinkie finger, which is a little gross considering it was just in her ear a few seconds ago, before she gets called over by the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader from Season One. It seemed important, so Himiko moved on.

-=+=-

Kaito was just barely holding back laughter, “--So, we finally managed to sign up for something for the Talent Swap, and you’re not gonna believe what I got her to do--”

“Don’t say it,” Maki warns, without much ill-intent.

“Okay, I won’t! How ‘bout you say it?”

“No.”

“Come on, Makiroll! J-Just--” He’s interrupted by his own snickers, attempting desperately to remain serious under the scrutinizing glare of his girlfriend. “Just tell them--!”

“No.”

“It’s alright, Maki! None of us will judge!” Angie promises, her own smile twitching as she suppresses light giggles. She’s still sitting on the reception desk, swinging her legs in unconscious rhythm. She seems a little brighter, less frightened now that Himiko, Tenko, Kaito, and Maki have moved over to start a discussion. 

“Yeah, _Makiroll,_ why don’t you tell us?” Himiko teases, her voice still weak with nerves. She’s huddled in Gonta’s absolute unit of a jacket, which basically trails on the floor behind her. The former entomologist had been more than happy to offer the tiny girl his jacket upon noticing her violently trembling.

Maki replies to the former mage with a sarcastic glare, her facial expression generally unmoving. Leave it to Maki to barely convey any sort of fear about the upcoming time limit. Surely she must be slightly on edge as well, as implied by her biting involuntarily at her thumbnail, but Himiko would never be able to tell what she was truly feeling about it all. 

The former assassin spends a long beat continuing to glare at Himiko, before she inhales and sighs heavily.

“...Cheerleading,” She mumbles unenthusiastically.

Tenko definitely heard her, as indicated by her stretched smile as she bit back laughter, but she still follows up with, “Huh? Wh-What was that?”

“We signed up for-- _Don’t laugh,”_ She warns Gonta, who accidentally let out a snicker from behind his hands. “This idiot noticed they needed a flyer and a few boys, so he signed both of us up without asking me--”

Kaito’s mouth drops open in exaggerated offense, “Hey! I asked you! You said it sounded fun--”

Maki lightly slaps him in the arm to keep him from talking, but at that point it was too late. The group was trying way too hard not to laugh, their voices high with giggles and hands uselessly covering their mouths. Kaito sniggers to himself for a few seconds before clearing his throat and composing himself.

“Hey, not cool guys. Quit laughing at her,” He tells them, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. “Cheerleading is a very-- _snrrk--_ A very fun sport that Maki has agreed to try--”

“I applaud your willingness to try new things!” Angie compliments fondly, returning to her more neutral state of cheerfulness. “I haven’t decided what I want to do yet.”

Tenko bounces on her toes, “Oh! I signed up for a lyrical dance!! Himiko wanted to join as well, but--”

“I-I’ve got two left feet… I’m great at many things, but dance is not one of them,” Himiko interrupts, holding back a nervous shiver.

“Gonta join band!!” The former entomologist exclaims excitedly, overly eager and forgetting his grammar. He notices the poorly formed sentence and begins to slow down immensely. “I joined a band… with Shuichi. He… is on the keyboard and I still-- I am still finding an instrument. Tried drums but…. I was too strong.”

“What happened, Gonta?” Tenko asks.

“...Gonta owes Danganronpa a lot of money, now.”

“Nah, you don’t owe ‘em anything. _They_ owe _us,”_ Kaito corrects, arm still slung around Maki’s shoulder. The reminder of the company they were owned by seems to snap his attention back to the situation, and his face begins to contort and darken. He checks his watch. “10:55. You’d think they’d have let us go by now.”

“10:55?” Gonta repeats. “Gon-- I should find Kirumi.”

“Any reason?”

“Need to be ready if something happens,” The taller man replies rather seriously. 

Himiko can’t help the shiver that runs up her spine involuntarily, the sudden chill returning once more in her chest and spreading tenfold. Even buried within the jacket of one of the tallest people on this planet, Himiko was still trembling pathetically. Nothing was working, and everything was starting to pile up on her small frame. Not even huddling in close to Tenko was stopping this abrupt, painful cold that rushed over her body. She was getting frailer by the second, body feeling increasingly lighter and numb. 

Himiko checks her phone. 10:56.

There’s a beat of silence that passes before Gonta turns to Himiko with a small smile, “Himiko can keep the jacket if she wants! I will take it back tomorrow.”

“Heehee. Thanks,” The redhead simpers, curling herself in it.

Gonta nods and dives back into the ocean of people. With his gargantuan height and Hulk-like physique, his head bobbed contently above the crowd.

“Any longer and I might bail,” Kaito continues, checking at his watch again with a tense sigh. 

He leaves it at that. There’s no additional words of encouragement, no added sentiments of inspiration or motivation. Only a tired, half-empty promise to ditch. Maki, equally as silent and on guard, hums at his side and crosses her arms.

The room seems to shift as a group begins to make their way up to the stage. Makoto, visibly disgruntled and spooked, was approaching the front of the reception hall, all the while rapidly whispering to Kyoko. It seems that not even the extended amount of time the Future Foundation had given themselves to work things out and quickly converse was enough, as their discussion spills over into the meeting. Makoto stops before standing in front of the microphone they set up earlier, listening to Kyoko as he takes a few deep breaths and composes himself. His sparkly personality is back before he starts talking.

“Hi, guys...! Thanks for, uh, staying up this late,” He starts, words chipped and forced. A disobedient bead of sweat runs down his forehead. “I- I know that everybody is a little nervous, so we really appreciate your cooperation.”

There’s a few grumbles within the crowd, but nobody seems to have the guts to shout objections yet. There’s a smaller blonde man next to Himiko, one with a cloudy eye, that hisses, “Not like we had much of a choice,” under his breath.

Himiko checks her phone’s clock. 10:57 PM. Three minutes left. 

The crowd has finally reached a rigid silence, the horde never stilling as they fidget and wriggle uneasily. Many participants, Himiko notices, are also checking their phones and watches, paying close attention as the time slowly ticked away. Their heads flip back and forth between Makoto and the exit, practically all of them ready to run at a moment’s notice. 

If something were to happen, was it smarter to be in a large group of people? Or was it smarter to be completely isolated? Being caught alone seemed absolutely terrifying, especially considering how defenseless Himiko would be if anything were to attack her. Surely this crowd of people was… the safer option? If she were to base it off of individualistic survival instead of… the majority’s safety? Her small stature would be an advantage if anything were to shoot from overhead into the crowd, but thinking about her having an _advantage_ in that situation just felt selfish and slightly cruel. Borderline horrifying for her to have to think about in the first place.

Himiko still locates the nearest exit points. Just in case. _Just in case._

Makoto clears his throat, fidgeting with his shirt’s collar. He, along with a few others from Future Foundation, were perhaps the only people not in pajamas. It indicated that they haven’t stopped working to change.

“W-We…” He starts to talk, but pauses to subtly glance over at Kyoko. She nods at him. “Um… Unfortunately don’t have any updates yet--”

 _“What?”_ A participant way in the back yells, setting off a ripple of objections from a grumpy crowd.

No updates? _No updates?_ Himiko could stand behind that microphone right now and give a much longer list of updates than the de facto leader of this entire commotion. Her and Korekiyo know more than that, know that there is more to be uncovered in this hotel, know that there is more that Makoto should be explaining to these people. The dead body in the medical tent, the text message coming from inside the building. The glass being unbreakable, the _rules_ being unbreakable, the watchtower outside that shoot warning shots when aggravated. Wasn’t this important to know? Would Makoto be responsible if somebody were to get hurt, simply because they were none the wiser?

Himiko checks the clock. 10:58. Gonta’s jacket was practically swallowing her with how tightly she was hugging it against herself.

“I’m really sorry, but there just isn’t much we are able to tell you right now,” Makoto says.

“Bullshit!” Somebody else in the crowd yells, who is immediately followed by a wave of other participants agreeing with her. 

“But we can--” He pauses until the crowd silences, acknowledging how not even the microphone was loud enough to overpower them. His facial expression falters for a moment, his eyes flickering to the ground almost guiltily. “We can start by…. Asking you all that if you or anybody you know of is associated with the Anti-Hope League, or any other radical anti-Danganronpa group, to please come up to a Future Foundation member. Um, immediately. Thank you.”

The safest “exit” near Himiko was a tiny break room located behind the reception hall that seemed to lock from the inside. If she couldn’t reach that in time, the next safest thing to do was run under the reception desk itself and hide. The best exit would be the archway that led into the hotel, but her group was so forward and the exit was so crowded that it seemed unlikely that Himiko would make it out safely. 

She’d be ready. She’s ready. Himiko is ready for something to happen.

It’s almost as if she knew.

“Uh, yes, question in the front row…?” Makoto asks softly, his smile wobbly. 

“Yeah. What’s going on at the time limit?” The man asks. “Also, fuck you.”

“...I’m gonna ignore that last remark-- W-We aren’t sure. But nothing bad, I promise--!”

“If it’s not anything bad, then let us out of here, already!! This meeting is _stupid!”_ Hiyoko hisses from the other side of the reception hall from where Himiko was standing. Members from her season, including a particularly agitated redhead next to her, yell in agreement.

Himiko checks the clock. She’s so numb and light-headed that she can barely lift her arm without it shaking out of control.

10:59. One minute.

Makoto can see he is losing control. His persona is weak, his normally convincing personality much more untrue and noticeably faulty, “We’re only making sure everybody is _safe,_ we only want to--”

“Oh, _whatever!”_ Himiko can just barely hear from the back. The crowd groans and grovels at the Ultimate Hope.

It’s very obvious that everybody’s exhaustion, nerves, and overall horror have melted and contorted into rage towards the only person they could throw it at. Makoto seemed relatively unphased by the rather vicious remarks. He probably _had_ to be, considering he was the face of a rather controversial company. He seemed more frazzled by the conversation he had before reaching the stage, having been this disconcerted upon entering the room. These participants needed him to be strong, to at least _pretend_ to know what he was doing, but his guilt was making him fall incredibly short.

Everybody was just as restless, just as antsy as the next person. The horrid anxiety and overwhelming tension was unbearable in every sense. Nobody around Himiko was making it any better. Tenko was just waiting for something to haywire, feet shuffling against the floor, head whipping back and forth in anticipation of grabbing Himiko’s hand and making a mad dash to a safe location. Angie was hauntingly still, her legs no longer swaying, her eyes drilled intently into Makoto’s head and her smile just barely noticeable. Kaito and Maki were both staring at their phones, watching the clock as it ticked down, waiting for the numbers to flick over to the dreaded 11.

Himiko can’t feel her legs.

“The situation is confusing, and I know everybody is angry,” Makoto says, sparing a nervous glance at his own watch. This speech felt repetitive, over-rehearsed and ingenuine. “But I can assure everybody that we are doing everything in our power to--”

11:00.

The world stops for a moment. It’s as if everything freezes, as if the room inhales in sharp unison. Tenko stops tapping her feet, Makoto’s mouth hangs open as he halts his planned address. Himiko’s body stops shaking. Or, at least, she can’t feel it shaking anymore. Perhaps it had gone numb entirely, had simply shut down. 

Nothing happens. Nothing moves. Not even time itself.

There’s a beat of silence where Himiko feels as if she wasn’t breathing. She was involuntarily holding her breath. Everybody was. Another beat of quiet passes before the participants begin to shift, exhaling in wavering relief. Himiko notices Tenko’s shoulders dropping as she sighs, notices Kaito unfreezing himself from where he stood to scratch nervously behind his neck. Participants glance at each other, double-checking their phones just in case they perhaps misread the time, or maybe had the time set a minute too early. But it was definitely 11:00, and nothing had happened yet.

“...everything in our power to work on it,” Makoto finishes, a tiny smile of relief catching him by surprise. He looks over the crowd, making sure everybody is alright. Rubbing nervously at his right ear, he ends the speech with, “...Thank you for staying here. This was just so we had everybody in the same place. You-- Uh, you can go now!”

Himiko allows herself to relax prematurely. It would take a few more seconds before she unfroze, but slowly a tingling sensation was beginning to reach her fingers once more, alerting her that her body was awakening again. She could feel her hands starting to twitch alive as her group of friends all began to chatter, muttering their own thoughts of relief and wishing each other very hurried goodnights. Not a single one of them was fully convinced of their safety just yet. Not a single one of them let down their guard. 

_It wasn’t 11,_ Himiko stupidly convinced herself. She had started repeating that phrase in her mind, in some vain attempt to wake herself up. Makoto would allow the participants to return to their rooms, and Himiko would be able to hide away and burrow herself in blankets and forget about the world. The phrase bounces jubilantly in her head, an almost frantic form of adrenaline rushing through her body. 

_It wasn’t 11!_ She thinks as her arms begin to shake again, _It wasn’t 11! It wasn’t--_

**_“TASK ONE FAILED. TEN ADDED TARGETS TO NEXT TASK.”_ **

It was too good to be true.

The voice appeared much too roughly, much too booming and loud. It scrapes through the participant’s ears and etches into their skin, screeching at a volume so blaring that it causes every occupant to cover their ears with their hands and hunch themselves over, as if it would help in any way, shape, or form. Panic rushes through Himiko’s body once more and suddenly she’s frozen again, suddenly she’s stood still and immobile. Suddenly, she can’t feel anything, can’t hear or touch or see anything, can’t breathe. She was in an ocean that was swallowing her. She was suddenly drowning. Himiko was _drowning._

_**"THREE DAYS. FOURTY PEOPLE MUST DIE. THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES TO YOUR** **ACTIONS."** _

The lights switch off, plunging the room into a darkness that nobody could see in. The only source of light is from a few streetlamps way down the road seeping through the glass doors, yet they barely provide any aid in the situation. Participants scream and gasp at each other, the crowd beginning to scatter and frantically disperse. They rush towards the exits in a mad dash, tripping and flailing and trampling over each other.

Somebody, _anybody,_ grabs Himiko’s hand, yanking her accidentally into one of the columns before shoving her underneath what she could only assume was a reception desk. She trips and stumbles over Gonta’s massive jacket but falls into somebody-- Maki, maybe-- who pushes her back into a seated position. People are yelling and screaming, but they all sound muffled. The microphone falls over and squeals with feedback as it hits the floor, picking up the screams of those who had ducked to the floor in cover.

Himiko can’t pull herself together. She’s trying desperately to wrangle the situation back in her mind but stays frozen, the pieces flailing and disintegrating before they could connect and ground her in the reality she was facing currently. 

It’s too loud but too quiet. It’s moving too fast but remains so slow. She doesn’t want people to touch her but needs desperately for somebody to shove her in the right direction.

She can’t see where, or who, or _what_ set off the gunshots. But it was too loud. And it was too unavoidable. 

And it definitely killed more than thirty people.

* * *

**TASK ONE UNSUCCESSFUL -- SIXTY ELIMINATED**

**Current Dead: 63**

**Confirmed: 2**

**Unconfirmed: 61**

**CURRENT MOST LIKELY: Junko Enoshima, Tsumugi Shirogane**

**MM STATUS: Alive**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 40/40


	18. losing sleep while i lose my mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> da blondes are out here,,,, sad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have a nice day!! :D

**-=+ DANGANRONPA THEATRE EVENT +=-**

**_Pity Party for Pianists!_ **

**Starring: Miu Iruma, Kaede Akamastu (ft. Shuichi Saihara)**

* * *

_Miu Iruma fucking hated hospitals._

_It wasn’t an incredibly well-known fact. She’d sell her left tit on Ebay before she trusted anybody from that damn killing game to know this fact. But this trait of hers would perhaps always stick with her, would always loom over her head as she trudged through the hallways of the Danganronpa hospital. This hatred for hospitals and her complete disregard for sleep keeps Miu Iruma on her toes during the night._

_The nurses were aware that she never stays in her room past curfew. Miu Iruma always had to be doing something, always had to be occupied with something. She just couldn’t seem to stop. She hated sleeping, especially in hospitals, and could always be found lurking in empty operating theatres with her shirt off or detaching the door to the fridge in the kitchen just to rebuild it again. The nurses had granted her permission to stay up “a little later, as long as she is respectful to the facility and gets sleep eventually”, but that last part is almost never fulfilled._

_The nurses gave up on trying to make her sleep quite some time ago._

_Miu thinks it fucking sucks that she had been comatised for the second time in her life, and no one from this shitty company had the gull to test any of her sleep-related inventions. They were there for a fucking reason!!!! She had already missed so much,_ too much _of her life from The Crash, that the thought of missing any more of it just so she could become part of this killing game enraged her to her very core. Her inventions could have changed the goddamn world by now, but they were apparently collecting dust while she slept and wasted away in that simulator. And it wasn’t as if she was allowed to bring any of her brilliant machines into this hospital, which was absolute BULLSHIT that the entire world will suffer from, so she has to find pieces of scrap metal and rebuild them from scratch. But everytime they see her breaking apart the coffee machine or dismantling her bed frame they always confiscate it and put it back._

_Miu sometimes finds herself involuntarily keeping her eyes open. Unblinking. There was always this… unconscious fear of closing her eyes, this deep-rooted paranoia that as soon as she closes them she won’t be able to open them until she’s passed even more developmental stages in her life. Or maybe, just maybe, she’ll close them and never open them again. She’ll fall asleep and never wake up. The hospital was bleak and horrifyingly familiar to Miu. The Crash took away too much of her life, whether those years be spent in a coma or in a hospital, so she wasn’t about to waste the rest of it by following Danganronpa’s orders and sleeping._

_And even if she did sleep, even if she did find herself collapsing out of pure exhaustion or fainting in hunger and complete lack of rest, the nightmares would almost instantly wake her up. She’d find herself screeching in the middle of the night, clawing gashes into her own neck, the same horrid dream snapping her back into reality and forbidding her from finding any peace in her sleep. It was always the same dream. She would be tied to a pole positioned on a wooden platform, a scaffold, with thousands of people all coming to watch. Nurses and family members and familiar faces would surround her, people pulling up in wrecked cars and blaring ambulances. Kokichi was always standing in front of her, his mouth moving but no words emerging, voicelessly demanding for her final words, her defense. She would always beg for him to speak louder, or beg the world for forgiveness over a crime she could not remember, but no matter what she does the dream always ends with a minute of something choking her from behind before she wakes up in a cold sweat._

_There was no time to rest when you were Miu Iruma._

_There was so much about this hospital that bugged the ever-loving shit out of her. She had awoken from the simulator a bit ago now, kicking and gargling and clawing desperately at an invisible garrote that hadn’t chased her into the real world. They sedated her and gave her a room with that Atua-freak, who was perhaps the last person in the hospital that Miu would have wanted to room with, before the nurses elaborated on some things. The killing game was all simulated. No, Iruma, you didn’t actually die, now shut up about it. Once every participant woke up, they would be allowed to go home. Once every participant woke up, they would “explain”._

_Miu had raised the fairly obvious question of why they couldn’t just grow a pair and explain now, but every nurse in the facility takes this weird vow of silence whenever it’s brought up. They hated talking to her. But it wasn’t as if she needed to talk with these absolute losers, anyways. Everybody in this place was either a freak, completely stupid, or too much of a loser for Miu’s brilliance._

_So, here she was. Walking through the hallways, her gorgeous girl-brain going a billion miles an hour. She’s gonna try sneaking into the day room. Usually there were nurses lingering around that area, so Miu always attempts to avoid it. But today, probably for the first time since she came to this hospital, the nurses were too preoccupied with overnight surveillance for Ryoma to guard it. That meant free reign for Miu._

_Fucking hell, was her hospital attire itchy. As soon as she reaches the day room, she’s throwing her clothes off and turning on some cartoons. Despite most of her brain advancing at an almost supernatural rate after The Crash, it seems her love for children’s television remained pretty much the same._

_Miu approaches the day room with intense hesitance, checking over her shoulder in case anybody had the nerve to follow her. Nobody ever did; not ever since she karate sliced Rantaro in the neck after he approached her from behind._

_The door was already open. Only a sliver, but nonetheless open._

_She steps inside to find the television already on. It was a dingy little box that they set up across the room, a machine that Miu wasn’t allowed to dismantle at the risk of every formerly-dead participant yelling furiously at her. Everything else in the room seemed relatively untouched: the round foldable tables still had unfinished games of Uno placed on top of them, the chairs were still scattered and unorganized, and the ugly green couches were still placed politely in front of the tv._

_Sprawled not on the couch, but_ in front _of the couch, was Kaede Akamatsu._

_The pianist was lying on her right side, knees curled into her as she stared forward at the bright screen. She was completely immobile, almost lifeless looking as she slouched pathetically on the cream-colored floor. She was lying in the complete dark. The only light came from the synthetic television screen in front of her._

_Personality-wise, Kaede wasn’t too horrible. For a titless pleb, at least. She definitely had her flaws, and was nowhere near as bright as the gorgeous-girl-genius Miu Iruma, but she was the only blackened that the inventor could stand. Kirumi has held this self-righteous, sickeningly bitter distaste towards her death, and has been practically unapproachable ever since. That, and she’s always busy with “prime minister duties” that the hospital continues to pull out of their ass. Korekiyo is almost always stationed in another wing of the hospital,_ far _away from the girls or anybody he could hurt, and was always talking to himself whenever he was allowed in the same room as his fellow participants. The last time Miu saw him, he was shrieking and being apprehended by at least five doctors, all the while screaming,_ **_“WE’RE NOT REAL!! IT’S NOT REAL!!”_ ** _at whoever he could find. Miu hasn’t seen him since, and quite honestly had no idea what the fuck he was on. Gonta was-- Well, that one was obvious._

_But Kaede was just kinda there. She’s barely talked to anybody, and not just because of her throat issues. She was always floating around the hospital, her normal spark almost entirely diminished, the guilt of it all eating her from the inside out._

_Seeing Kaede would be fine at any other point of the day, but not in the middle of the night. The middle of the night was_ Miu’s _time, was when_ Miu _got to roam and do whatever and not fall asleep. Kaede being there meant that she would have to keep her clothes on._

_“Yo, Bakamatsu. It’s 1 AM, lights out,” She calls out to the blonde, waiting at the door with her arms folded over her chest._

_No response. Not even a flinch. Miu’s eyebrows furrow, her lips pursing._

_“You deaf or somethin’, titless? 1 AM. If yer lookin’ for action, you ain’t gonna find any out here!”_

_Nothing. Maybe she was asleep...?_

_Miu huffs and slinks forward, feet dragging against the floor as she approached the pianist. Kaede was watching the live feeds of Danganronpa, her eyes drooping yet hauntingly open at the same time, noticeable streaks of tears already having dried onto her face. There’s a notebook in front of her, but it looks as if it hadn’t been touched in a long time._

_“Ey,” Miu says, waving her foot in front of the blonde’s face._

_Kaede blinks, probably for the first time in a while, her lavender irises flickering briefly to meet Miu’s. The eye contact doesn’t last long, as she soon returns her full attention to the screen in front of her._

_Miu turns to the television screen that Kaede was so invested in. Danganronpa never showed anything particularly interesting during the nighttime. All of the commotion usually happened during the day, when the majority of the viewers watched the live cams, but if anything were to happen during the night they would edit the event into the final cut so none of the viewers miss anything. The next edited episode was supposed to air tomorrow, which means Miu has to spend yet another couple of hours sitting and watching the remaining participants survive without her._

_The only person on the screen was Shuichi Saihara. He had his head in his hands, hunched over a few pieces of shadowed paper and a journal filled with scribbles next to him. The simulator was a few hours ahead of the time zone that reality was in, so it was approximately 4 AM where the detective was. They were in the mastermind’s lair. Everybody seems to have fallen asleep, already. He remains awake, and for some reason Kaede feels inclined to stay awake, also._

_“The fuck are you doing? Tryin’ to peep?” Miu teases._

_Kaede releases a weak noise from the back of her damaged throat, eyes never leaving the screen. Miu mocks the noise, but the pianist was too tired to say anything back. Somehow her silence makes the inventor shrivel in defense anyways._

_A moment passes before Kaede reaches, painfully slowly, for the notebook in front of her. She opens it to a fresh page, takes her pencil and lightly drags it across the paper._

**_WORRIED,_ ** _she writes in a shaky font._

_“Worried? About what?”_

_Kaede pauses again, then begins to write once more with measured lines,_ **_DONT WANT ANYTHING 2 HAPPEN._ **

_Miu scoffs, “Th-The fuck are_ you _gonna do about it, Blondie? Jump into the TV!?”_

_Kaede tilts her head to look up at Miu and glare, her facial expression hardening. She glowers at her for a brief, unbearable moment, before turning back to her notebook and angrily scribbling a sloppy note._

**_GO AWAY,_ ** _it reads in harsh lettering._

 _“Hee--- W-Well, damn!!” Miu spits, recoiling her arms and gingerly stepping back, “You’re gonna regret asking_ me _to go away! M-My loss of inspiration is gonna be felt all around the damn world!!”_

_Kaede shoves the notebook further towards the inventor, further emphasising her point._

_“J-Jeez, fine! You’re so rough…” Miu whimpers._

_With risen shoulders and a withering facial expression, the strawberry blonde begins to shuffle away. She shouldn’t have expected much from the day room, anyways. Maybe raising her hopes this high was a fault on her part. Fuck it. She’ll just scavenge around in the kitchen, or something._

_There’s a noise from behind her as she nears the exit. Of course, Miu flips around immediately. Any form of noise or slight movement from the rear was cause for alarm for the inventor, however insignificant. The noise in question was this weird gurgling noise that Kaede made, snotty sounding and clearly not meant to be heard by Miu. It almost sounded like a hiccup, or maybe a weird cough._

_Miu realizes it was a sob when she saw Kaede’s shoulders bobbing._

_It leads to questions that the inventor didn’t want to answer. There’s this unpleasant feeling of deep empathy that was starting to grow within the depths of her stomach, this almost nauseating sentiment of guilt and pity. How long has Kaede been up? There were streaks of dried tears already running down her face before Miu got there, had she been crying all night? What about? Miu could make a few guesses and be correct either way._

_How many nights has she been up like this?_

_It all seems to connect. The nurses were always guarding the day room overnight because Kaede was always in there. That means Kaede has been staying up this late ever since Miu got here-- probably a lot earlier, even. It explains the pianist’s rather drowsy conduct during the day, her spaced-out demeanor and unfocused mannerisms as she floated through the events of the morning. At the same time Miu had been up in the middle of the night, anxious to move and kick start her brain, Kaede had been sitting there, not on the couch but in front of it, watching over the remaining participants as they continued their killing game. It was sickeningly pitiful, and Miu hated how she felt sorry for her._

_And she hated how she was gliding straight back to the blonde even more._

_Miu is not good at comforting people. She’s not good at people, period. The last time she came even close to “comforting” somebody was way back during her first nights here when Angie wouldn’t shut the fuck up during her sleep, leading Miu to pat her roughly two times on the head with a semi-awkward, semi-agravated, “there, there”. It didn’t help at all; in fact, the physical contact definitely only made things worse. There was no prior indication that Miu would be able to successfully comfort the now full on sobbing Kaede, yet the inventor still moved forward._

_And she wasn’t sure why. Was there some sort of solidarity there? Some backwards sense of unison? In their mutual distrust towards this hospital, perhaps, or maybe in their shared deaths due to asphyxiation. Maybe that was it-- Similar trauma. Was that really something a genius such as Miu Iruma should bond with someone like_ Kaede _over?_

_Miu is on the floor now, directly next to Kaede. Without permission or even words, she lifts Kaede’s head off of the undoubtedly uncomfortable floor and rests it on her own left leg. Kaede notices Miu trying to move her and contorts her face at the inventor._

_“Ey! Be grateful, bitch!” Miu hisses with little power,_ “M-Millions _would pay to put their head in between my thighs!”_

_Kaede responds with a heavy sigh. She spends a few seconds laying there stiffly, her shoulders bunched up near her ears, before she eventually easens and rests her head where Miu placed it. Silence overcomes them. Kaede’s whole body was shaking with noiseless, convulsive sobs, making Miu feel even guiltier and guiltier about things completely out of her control. They sit in that same, contrite silence, watching the bright screen in front of them and waiting for things to happen._

_Shuichi has barely moved. Miu tries to discern what he was writing but so much of it is shadowed by his hands that it becomes unreadable. All Kaede does is rest against the inventor’s leg and cry until there’s a damp spot on Miu’s beige hospital pants._

_“Ew…. Quite slobbering all over me, you’re gettin’ me all wet! And not in a sexy way…” At Miu’s remark, Kaede snaps her head up to face her, making a gesture to alert the inventor that she is_ this close _to snapping. “I-I-I was only joking!!”_

_Kaede sniffs unattractively, slamming her hand sloppily against her notebook and dragging it over towards her. She grabs the pencil and begins shakily writing again._

**_UR JOKES MAKE PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE,_ ** _she initially writes, before crossing some lettering out and rewriting it to,_ **_MAKES ME UNCOMFORTABLE._ **

_Miu stares at the notebook. She knows that sugar coating is a little hard when you’re immensely upset and also mute, so she can’t exactly_ blame _Kaede for the rather blunt wording. And even then, it was definitely true. Miu thinks her jokes sound like the funniest thing imaginable in her own head, but when she says them out loud they’re “annoying” and “uncomfortable” and “quite concerning for a sixteen year old to be saying out loud, especially considering the circumstances and how everybody around her is a stranger”._

 _The inventor’s face comes up blank, with little energy to refute Kaede’s claim, “...Whatever. You know what_ I _think is uncomfortable? Being watched by your dead girlfriend over some secret cameras as you work peacefully,” She huffs and turns back towards the screen, throwing her hands at it. “I mean, Jesus fuckin’ Christ, this emo simp’s been doin’ nothing but-- But-- ...God, what_ is _he writing?”_

_The question seems to halt Kaede in her tracks. Her face scrunches once more as she desperately tries to hold back tears, her lower lip wobbling as she glides her trembling hand across the page._

**_CLAIRE DE LUNE,_ ** _she answers._

_“Eh? Who the fuck is Claire?” Miu responds, scratching at her inner thighs inelegantly. “‘She hot?”_

_Kaede vigorously shakes her head no, using a sudden gust of energy to push herself off of Miu’s leg and crawl even closer to the screen. She frantically wipes tears out of her eyes, gesturing the inventor over with sporadic arm movements, all the while tapping her pointer finger against the television. The pianist was pressing her forehead against the glass, pointing at the sheet he was working on. Now that Miu was so close that the television screen burned into her eyes, she was just able to see what Shuichi was doing. On one side were a few music sheets. On the other, a notebook filled with annotations as the detective slowly writes out every musical note by hand. It was like… some weird sort of homework task. By the looks of it, he clearly wasn’t musically inclined. But for some reason he felt inclined to… learn a piano piece?_

_Kaede just kept pointing at it, waiting for Miu to understand, before she gestures at herself._

_“Me-- It’s because of--” She practically breathes, voice hoarse and almost painful sounding. She lets her hands fall back on her lap, a few stray tears falling with it, before she grabs at her notebook with a sorrowful inhale and writes,_ **_CLAIRE DE LUNE WAS FAVORITE SONG. DONT KNOW WHY HE IS LEARNING IT._ **

_“Don’t know why-- Bitch!! It’s because he’s an emotional sap, are you an idiot?” Miu retorts. “It’s not just him, by the way. All of ‘em were wallowing over your death like you were the fucking Messiah.”_

_Kaede shakes her head again, scribbling as she does so,_ **_DONT DESERVE IT. DONT DESERVE TO BE MISSED._ **

_Miu almost instantly sours. There was something about that statement that rubbed her the wrong way. She wasn’t sure what it was: the fact that Kaede was missed deeply while Miu was barely spared a passing glance? The fact that Kaede went down in semi-martyrdom while Miu was choked to death with fucking_ toilet paper _and then tossed off of a roof, never to be acknowledged again after the trial? The fact that Kaede, who had died trying to protect everyone while Miu died trying to do the opposite, thinks she doesn’t deserve to be missed in the first place?_

 _“...Oh,” Miu says, voice hollow._ “That’s _what this is, huh? Throwin’ yourself a pity party, Bakamatsu?”_

 _The pianist stares at the inventor, expression falling into a frown,_ **_NO, THATS NOT IT WANT TO MAKE SURE THEYRE SAFE._ ** _There’s a moment of pause before she quickly adds,_ **_CANT SLEEP. TOO WORRIED. GOT A BIT SAD, THATS ALL._ **

_“Duh,” Miu replaces, clawing at the wet spot Kaede made with her tears. The pianist chuckles sheepishly to herself, wiping underneath her eyes. “...You sure that’s all?”_

_Kaede hesitates before nodding, hiccuping as she does so._

_It definitely wasn’t “all”, and Miu can’t blame Kaede for not sharing the full story. Neither of them would be the first to explain why they were up at ass o’clock in the morning, and neither of them would be the first to explain what kept them from sleeping at this time._

_Kaede spends a few moments just staring at the screen again, a faint ghost of a smile curling her lips upwards. Tears continue to stream down her face, but they seem much more peaceful now._

_“I wish he’d go to sleep,” She mouths, using uncoordinated gestures to fully communicate it to Miu. “He never sleeps.”_

“We _should go to sleep,” Miu corrects with little enthusiasm, earning a watery laugh from the pianist._

_She says that, but she knows she won’t be shutting her eyes. No matter how much dialogue she engages in, Miu was still in a hospital. Miu still loathed the idea of sleeping, and despises the idea of eternal sleep even more._

_Kaede takes the journal, coughing with her mouth closed, and writes,_ **_NURSES ARENT HERE TONIGHT I WANT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT._ **

_“But they’re here every_ other _night. Guardin’ you, I found out. You been out here_ every single _night, Bakamatsu?”_

_Kaede exhales through her nose, looking wistfully off to the side. It answers Miu’s question without words. Yes, she has. And she’ll probably continue to do so._

_Miu isn’t sure why she says it, and she isn’t sure where the fuck this rather rational, sympathetic side came from, but she leans back on her arms and returns a rather non-chalant, “You don’t have to feel guilty, y’know.”_

_Kaede’s lips thin into a strained line. There’s clear hesitation that runs across her features, a beat of heavy silence as she turns her misty eyes away from Miu and towards the screen. Very faintly, almost unnoticeably, the pianist begins to shake her head in disagreement. Miu squints her eyes in deep sarcasm._

_“Alright. Get back here, Blondie,” She motions, patting at her leg again. “Sit on my lap like I’m Santa, and listen to me.”_

_Kaede pulls another face before very begrudgingly crawling back over to the inventor, disobeying her orders to sit on her lap and instead resting her head back on Miu’s right leg, as she had been doing prior. She’s clearly more at ease now, less resilient to lie down. More calm, but not as hollow and borderline frightening as she had been when Miu walked in on her._

_This is when Miu’s pathetic communication skills really come to light, “You-- You are…Okay--” She inhales and exhales, focus being caught on the screen as Shuichi shifts himself around. Both of them sigh in unison. “You need to stop bein’ such a-- How do I put this lightly… Such a_ little bitch.”

_Kaede laughs sardonically and reaches for her notebook again, but Miu continues to talk over her as she writes._

_“A-And before you start yappin’ at me, I know that wasn’t the right fuckin’ wording!! Get off my dick!!!!!” The inventor says. It doesn’t stop Kaede from writing. “I-I-I-I just mean that you need to stop kicking yourself in the clit over it! Y-Y’know? Rantaro forgives you, nobody else really has a problem with it, s-so what’s the big deal--?”_

_Before Miu can continue her rant, Kaede shoves the notebook in her direction._

**_DON’T YOU FEEL GUILTY?_ **

_The notebook stays frozen, held still by Kaede’s suddenly steady hand. The question quite literally hangs in the air. Miu blinks at it, the words blurring before her very eyes. The letters sting._

_Fuck. Shit, she really does._

_Or, at least, she thinks she does. There’s a more humane part of her that felt deep guilt, one that didn’t feel over-characterized and exaggerated, one that felt truly horrid and remorseful. One that cursed her for who she is, resented her for who she had become. For who she would have become if that stupid,_ idiotic _fucking plan actually managed to work. It had all seemed perfect in that moment; The virtual world was practically flawless and built by an absolute genius, and the murder plan was, according to her own standards, practically unsolvable. Nobody would care if Kokichi was gone. Nobody would care if_ she _was gone, either, so it would have hurt much less when, or if, she had won that trial and condemned them all to their early graves._

_Miu was absolutely terrified that she was capable of doing all that._

_In a way, maybe being murdered was the best way out. But even then the consequences and her reputation still followed. She will always be known as the girl who tried to commit murder, will always be known as the girl who tried to kill Kokichi. Or, at the very least, the horny bimbo girl with big tits and an even bigger attitude. The crass inventor whose complete lack of social skills and verbal filter will go down in infamy. The all-bark, no-bite genius who was too stupid and too wimpy to commit fully to her plan, who hesitated and monologued for time while a giant approached to slaughter her from behind, who was too scared to fall asleep and too arrogant to ask for help and too childish and vulgar and slutty and mean. Who was too guilty,_ so fucking guilty, _to admit it._

_“No,” Is what she finally comes up with, after her long pause had already answered Kaede’s question for her. “N-No, I’m not. I’d never.”_

_Kaede was writing but Miu wasn’t looking at her. The inventor’s eyes were fixated on the screen. She could see why it was so hypnotizing, now. Now that she was sitting there, on the floor like Kaede had been. Now that she stared at the live feeds as they happened in real time, instead of watching the edited versions after they had aired. It all felt so real. It all felt so genuine, unedited and sincere. She felt like Shuichi was a real person, with real sorrow and ambitions, a detective who only wanted to learn one, stupid little song on the piano so he could remember his friend. Suddenly, looking past the detective and noticing the rest of her living class in the background, all of them sleeping and breathing and being alive, Miu just couldn’t help but feel indescribable pain. Unimaginable guilt._

_None of this would have fucking happened if she had just flipped over to Caillou®._

_Kaede holds up the notebook again, and it’s a long block of text that Miu has to prepare herself for before reading._

**_RANTARO AND I HAVE BEEN DOING ‘SPEAK MY TRUTH’ EXERCISE AND HE SAYS ITS OKAY TO FEEL GUILTY AS LONG AS I DIDNT DO IT AGAIN IT SHOULD BE FINE BUT I THINK HES JUST SAYING THAT I THINK HES JUST TRYING TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER. I DONT FEEL BETTER ABOUT IT AT ALL_ ** **_AND ~~I THINK~~_ ** **_IM ASSUMING YOU ALSO FEEL BAD ABOUT KG. BUT I STILL KINDA AGREE WITH HIM AND I THINK AS LONG AS YOU DONT REPEAT YOUR MISTAKES YOURE NOT A BAD PERSON._ ** ~~**_THIS ISNT ABOUT ME THO ITS ABOUT YOU_ **~~ **_SINCE YOU DIDNT ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING. KINDA TIRED THIS MIGHT NOT MAKE SENSE._ **

_“It’s real fuckin’ complicated, isn’t it?” Miu replies after reading, cursing internally at how weak her voice sounded. “And don’t exclude yourself, titless. Either both of us are bad people, or we’re both the holiest motherfuckers you’ve ever seen. Right after that Atua-freak.”_

_Kaede smirks and nods, before she circled the phrase,_ ** _AS LONG AS YOU DONT_** **_REPEAT YOUR MISTAKES._**

_Miu reckons a lot of things in her life were beginning to repeat. It was almost as if she was rewinding, in a way. Her new life had begun with The Crash and that godforsaken coma, her new intelligence and body had kickstarted a phase of her life that would change who she was and will be as a person. The cybersleep she had just been placed into felt almost like her past echoing itself, like it had restarted everything once more._

_The repetition worried her._

_“I-I guess,” Miu agrees with little thought._

_Kaede hums from where she lays, head still resting comfortably on Miu’s lap, tears beginning to dry as they stare forward. There’s a deep feeling of dread that was beginning to form in the inventor’s stomach, a heavy sentiment of guilt and fear and exhaustion. She can feel a lump beginning to grow in the back of her throat, a sob that she was desperately trying to choke down, a cry that she hopelessly begged to surrender before Kaede looked up from where she was sitting peacefully and notice the inventor beginning to grow guilty. Miu wanted nothing less than the pianist to glance upwards and realize that the strawberry blonde was pursing her lips, sealing them shut, contorting her face so that it doesn’t look as upset and distressed and sappy and gross. The inventor was fixating herself on the screen, even when Shuichi closes his eyes, falling into a sleep that Miu could only dream of having._

_Miu wanted to go to sleep so badly. She just wanted to sleep._

_Kaede notices how Shuichi was finally sleeping and sighs contentedly, her job now completed. She emits a satisfied sigh and begins to close her eyes, her body too tired to make the long haul back to their designated rooms._

_She looks up for a brief moment, attempting to meet the inventor’s eyes. Miu sharply turns away._

_Kaede taps her fingers against her chin before pointing them in Miu’s direction, the sign for the phrase_ ‘Thank you’. _Her last, parting “words” before collapsing from exhaustion was to point back down at her notebook, tapping on the phrase_ ** _DONT_** **_REPEAT YOUR MISTAKES, DONT_** **_REPEAT YOUR MISTAKES,_** _continuously. Like it was supposed to be encouraging, or perhaps motivation or comfort towards their situation. Maybe it was more of a personal reminder, than anything, a reminder for Kaede to be better, to_ do _better._

_“Uh-huh,” Miu agrees. It’s all she could manage without it sounding like she was crying, all she could manage without breaking out into hot, distressed tears._

_Miu can’t truthfully agree to the sentiment. She knows her past, she knows her present, and she knows her future. She’ll emerge in the morning with newfound arrogance to ignore the statement entirely, will attempt to shove away any memories that bring back unwanted fears and trauma until she forgets herself entirely. If that means shoving people away in the process, she will do it. If that means shoving away her happiness, or any feeling of safety she has in her paranoid, untrusting brain, she’ll do it._

_Miu can’t truthfully agree to the sentiment when she was already repeating her mistakes. And oh, God, how she was going to repeat them._


	19. and now, you see, i've gone completely out of my mind!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everybody reacts to stress differently

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *vine voice* what the FUCK is up kyle. no, what did you say, dude-- what the FUCK dude. step the FUCK UP, kyle

**Untitled Group Chat**

**May 21st, 6:57 AM**

**Makoto Naegi:** Hello! It’s Makoto Naegi. If you could all assemble at the dining hall for breakfast, that would be greatly appreciated! We understand if you do not feel safe doing so, but be aware that time has passed and the threat has greatly decreased. Please make sure to sign in, whether at breakfast or another time! The Future Foundation and Team Danganronpa are working very hard to handle the situation, and we will get back to you as soon as we have updates. Thank you for your cooperation :)

**Unknown Number 5: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Kaito Momota: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Unknown Number 6: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Unknown Number 3: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Unknown Number 7:** FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCKYO U FUCKK YOUFUCK YOU 

**Unknown Number 8: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Unknown Number 3: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Unknown Number 9: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Unknown Number 3:** WHAT THE UFKC HAVE YOU DONE TO US YOUT E KILLING US 

**Unknown Number 3:** WHAT HAVE OYU DONE

 **Makoto Naegi:** im sorry

 **Makoto Naegi:** im so sorry im so so sorry

**Unknown Number 10: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Unknown Number 10: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Unknown Number 9: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Unknown Number 4: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Unknown Number 3: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Kirumi Tojo: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Unknown Number 11: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Unknown Number 12: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

**Unknown Number 9: [MESSAGE DELETED BY ADMIN]**

-=+=-

Gonta’s jacket was unsurprisingly warm.

Himiko had herself completely bundled in it, the darkness of the earthy green sweater swallowing the trembling redhead whole as she cowered in what she could only assume was the corner of a hotel room. Somebody had picked her up a while ago, a few hours after the shots had silenced, and taken her to a secondary location. She passed out from hyperventilation and shock practically two seconds later.

The former mage had awoken in total darkness, still buried in the cave of Gonta’s jacket, her head resting on somebody’s lap and body scrunched into a defensive ball. She peeked out from her hiding spot, only to find herself in even more darkness. Her class, or at least what she could see of her class, had holed themselves in a hotel room and turned off all the lights, closed all of the curtains, and locked every possible entry point. They’ve created a makeshift panic room. Himiko assessed the situation before immediately covering herself in the jacket once more, scrunching in on herself even further. 

It was Tenko’s lap she was leaning against, so the former aikido master was definitely there. She noticed Kokichi and Kaede sitting on the bed when she peeked out from beneath her cover a little earlier, so they were there as well. Gonta was hard to miss with his towering stature, and Kirumi had to be there with him by default, confirming both of them in the room. Somebody was hyperventilating in the corner, and Himiko could only assume it was Korekiyo, who had looked quite distressed and agonised as he rocked back and forth. Himiko knows Angie was there, also; She was sitting next to the pair with her hands clasped together, whispering foreign prayers under her breath.

It’s the first time since the simulator that Himiko has heard Angie pray.

Himiko reckons she was about to pass out again. There’s a light-headedness that has followed her even after sleep, an almost unreal faintness that envelops her and leaves her entirely numb to her senses. It felt as if she was floating, as if she was so light and ungrounded that she would simply fly away if she wasn’t underneath perhaps the largest jacket known to man. Despite the floaty feeling of complete emptiness engulfing her, Himiko would probably collapse almost instantly if she tried to stand up. She feels completely hollow, as if most of the life inside of her had disappeared and left her in one trembling, thinly breathing, sweaty ball. She’s paler than usual. If someone were to lift up Gonta’s jacket they might mistake her for a ghost, an empty shell of somebody long gone.

“No, I haven’t heard from her,” Somebody says. It sounded like Rantaro, but that being said his voice was so weak and muffled that it could have been anybody. He was clearly responding to somebody, somebody who Himiko couldn’t hear. Kaede, maybe?

“Of course,” Someone else says. “It’s Miu, w-what do you expect?”

“Well, it’d certainly be nice to hear from her, especially _considering the fucking situation--”_

“Quiet, please,” Korekiyo mumbles, voice high and trembling.

“...Sorry.”

Himiko had checked her phone a few minutes ago. About half an hour after she woke up, she finally managed to muster up the energy to extend her arm and tap around for her mobile device. The phone’s light practically blinds the poor redhead, and she’s forced to blink and whimper at it before her eyes eventually adjust. 

7:00 AM. Breakfast. 

Makoto had asked for another assembly in the dining hall, but Himiko sincerely doubts that he would receive the same positive reception towards the idea. Himiko sincerely doubts that _anybody_ would follow his instructions. The idea of assembling with a large group of people, the idea of doing anything but hiding away and crying yourself into an unrestful sleep, just sounded completely unreasonable and ridiculous. 

Even if she wanted to go, Himiko doesn’t have strength. Nor the energy. Nor the emotional conviction to even attempt stepping through those dining room doors without crumbling to the floor. 

She barely even has the energy to _cry._ Isn't this something she should be crying about? Everybody else has already or currently is sobbing and getting upset and getting angry, but the redhead just couldn’t seem to find it in her to do anything but sit on the floor and vibrate violently. Tenko had rested her hand against Himiko’s shoulder, grounding her and keeping the former magician from completely spacing out, but the redhead still felt little sense of where she was.

Somebody lets out a sarcastic laugh. They sound distant, as if underwater.

“They want us in the dining hall,” They say. It’s almost undeniably Ryoma. His voice is still remarkably low, but the edges of his words are much sharper. On edge, even. 

Rantaro is the only person there who has the nerve to laugh sardonically back, “Good luck getting anybody there. Goooooooood luck.”

“I don’t…” Himiko reckons it was Kirumi who started that statement, but the sentence fades quickly, her voice fragile. It’s as if she had lost her train of thought. “...I don’t understand what else we can… do…”

“...We should start with--” He gets something caught in his throat, but very quickly clears it. Even his voice was weak. “Start with… getting everybody in the same room…?”

That meant not everybody in Himiko’s class was in the hotel room with her.

Her curiosity once more overpowers everything. Himiko takes a few deep breaths, a sickening feeling of nausea beginning to grow deep within her chest, before she very shakily lifts Gonta’s jacket over her head. They’ve turned on the lights. They blind the redhead instantly. 

“Good morning,” Kokichi waves from where he sits on the bed, facial expression comically strained. Kaede sits next to him, legs crossed and phone in her lap, hunched over the screen. There are dry streaks of tears running down her cheeks, starting from her puffy eyes and stopping down at her chin. Despite it, she was one of the least emotive people in the room currently. She just sat there. Staring down.

Tenko notices Himiko emerging from her cocoon and shifts around, her body stiff and rigid. She’s visibly disordered, the hair dumped over her shoulders disheveled and her face red from sobs and intense breathing. She gives the redhead a wobbly smile, but it’s very clear she’s still in a state of shock. Angie, who was huddled next to Tenko, has stopped mumbling under her breath upon noticing the former magician. She’s still in her pajamas, using her oversized t-shirt to completely cover her legs. _Everybody_ is still in their pajamas. Nobody has changed. Or moved, probably. 

“...Who’s here?” Himiko asks. It’s blunt and unfeeling. 

Rantaro is one of the only people standing. He paces in front of the closet doors, eyebrows knitted together and lips thinned. At her tiny voice, he sighs.

“Mostly everybody. Kaito sprained his ankle, so he stayed behind with Maki in the staff room. Shuichi’s…. Somewhere, but he answered his phone so he’s fine. And Miu is…” He looks over at Kaede, who simply shakes her head no. He completes his statement with a fragile, “... Miu’s somewhere else.”

Himiko can see her class, now. Kirumi and Ryoma were on opposite sides of the room, both of them sitting and waiting anxiously for something to happen, hands tapping and eyes narrowed. Gonta had left his ringer on, so his slowly-written text messages to basically anybody he could get a hold of dinged throughout the hotel room as he sat rigidly in an armchair. Korekiyo was curled up in the far corner, as far away as he could possibly get from Angie and Tenko, his breathing hollow and his eyes wide. It looked as if he hadn’t slept at all that night. Himiko was almost certain she was the only one who actually got any rest. And that was not good, considering her “rest” was her collapsing in total shock. 

Miu was unaccounted for. Out of every moment for her to up and vanish, the most certainly was _not_ the best time. She had been given an entire night to answer her phone, but has yet to give anybody any form of communication. It must be why Kaede was stilled into a warbling silence, why she was staring almost robotically at her phone, waiting for a response. Himiko nearly had a panic attack when she lost Tenko during _one_ gunshot.

Oh, god. She could only _imagine_ what it was like to lose somebody close during _sixty._

Was that the last time she would ever see Miu again? Would her last conversation with the former inventor be a distasteful argument fueled by fear and paranoia? Some backhanded discussion of trust? Himiko’s not even sure the severity of the situation has hit her yet. She feels like she’s flying over it, or observing the situation from a distance. Like she’s an outsider looking in, watching in horror but not experiencing it to its full extent. Others are crying around her but she just can’t understand. She just _can’t understand._

“Hey, you had your phone under there,” Rantaro says, addressing Himiko. There’s something desperate in his tone. “Did… Miu maybe…?”

“Miu doesn’t like me,” Himiko replies, voice hollow. “...But no. No, I haven’t heard from her.”

Kaede emits a wavering exhale, sounding dangerously close to bursting into tears once more. Her head falls into her hands and for a moment she stays there, allowing the room to settle into uneasy silence once more. There’s a beat that passes before she abruptly pushes herself off of the bed, startling many with her sudden movement.

 _I’m going to find her,_ Himiko assumes she signed, but her movements were so sloppy and the redhead’s grasp of sign language was so limited that it probably wasn’t the most accurate.

Practically everybody tells her no, _absolutely_ not, raising their arms in protest as the blonde begins to march over towards the door. Himiko watches, her eyes glassy, her mouth unmoving. A complicit bystander. 

“K-Kaede, this isn’t smart at all. Please don’t do this,” Tenko all but begs, gently lifting Himiko up from her lap so that she can stand up. Considering how wobbly her ascent was, indicating that her legs were asleep, it was clear she hasn’t stood up in quite some time. Now that Himiko thinks about it, her legs were beginning to tingle as well. It was better than being completely numb, she supposed. “We don’t know what— _who’s_ out there, and I-I’m not going to let you—“

“I agree. This isn’t smart,” Ryoma says. “We had more lenience the last time, we _don’t_ have it this—“

Kirumi’s eyes narrow, “A night has already passed... and Makoto has explicitly stated it is safe to leave—“

“He said it’s _safer,_ not _safe.”_

 _She was so scared,_ Kaede signed at the same time as Ryoma’s conversation, whispering the words with great distress. People were already starting to “talk” over each other, and Himiko can’t keep up with both discussions at the same time, _Miu was so scared and— She was_ **_terrified,_ ** _she must be so terrified—_

“I am sure she’s fine,” Kirumi tells her, before immediately turning back to Ryoma to continue their conversation. “We won’t receive any information if we keep ourselves holed up here—“

 _If she’s fine, then why won’t she answer her phone!? Why won’t she answer!?_ Kaede gestures frantically.

The room was beginning to grow increasingly bitter, the participants filled with inexplicable dread and anger. Kokichi’s expression was stiff and unmoving, Kirumi’s eyes were shifting from Ryoma and off to the side, as if battling between being right and being guilty. Kaede was seconds away from rushing out of the doors, taking the drastic steps that nobody else in the class was ready to take. It was like a powder keg waiting to explode. People were going to start yelling. Even Korekiyo, who has barely spoken besides asking people to be quiet, was starting to curl in on himself even further from the increasing volume of his peers.

Himiko knew better than to enter the upcoming argument. She had already missed so much of the chaos and stress just by simply hyperventilating herself into fainting, so maybe she should just succumb to the panic and do that again…?

“Th-That could be unrelated! Maybe her phone died? O-Or she passed out, maybe?” Tenko suggests. Of course, she would be the one to suggest it. She had been the one whose phone died during the initial gunshot, after all.

“U-Um, nobody else thinking about going to dining hall,” Gonta inputs, turning his phone’s screen. It’s so tiny in his massive hands. No wonder why he couldn’t text well. “Everybody else is… staying hidden.”

Angie was smiling, eyes wide and panicked, “I don’t want to leave… I don’t want to leave…”

 _You aren’t going to. I am,_ Kaede returns.

“Why do you feel the need to baby her? Miu is a grown woman!” Kokichi chirps, bouncing on the bed he sits on. “She’ll be fiiiinnnneeeee.”

“Nothing about this is _fine,”_ Rantaro spits.

Kokichi sniffles, his lower lip wobbling with crocodile tears, “Y-You’re raising your voice at me…?”

“Don’t start fake crying, _degenerate—“_ Tenko starts, before she backtracks. Her face begins to pale. “No, I-I didn’t— _Not_ degenerate, I meant—!“

There’s a rushed knock at the door. 

Kaede doesn’t excuse herself from the conversation; instead, she immediately swerves on her heels and shuffles towards the door. With little grace, she pressed her face against the exit, peeking through the peephole. Not even a milli-second later, she reaches for the doorknob with a sob of relief. Himiko can just barely hear a breathy cry of, _“Oh, thank god.”_

Behind the door, a group of three. Kaito limps helplessly into the room, one arm crutched around a rigid Maki’s shoulders. His ankle is bruising, turning an ugly shade of violet, looking incredibly painful to walk on. Himiko can’t help but wince as she gets a good look at it, sucking air sharply in through her teeth. Kaito was solidifying his expression as best as he could, attempting to hide his pain with great effort, but even his mask of strength did little to numb the agony he most certainly was in.

Following Kaito as he hobbles in, an angry inventor.

Miu stomps into the room, grips the door with the strength of a thousand suns, and slams it so roughly behind her that Korekiyo yelps at it.

“Alright, you _fucks!”_ She begins furiously, pointing at an accusatory finger at the group. Kaede barely has a chance to open her mouth, barely has a moment to exclaim how happy she was to see the strawberry blonde, before Miu began her irate rant. “If you’re one of ‘em pig-nosed traitors, you better grow some balls and _confess,_ cuz you just got _si-- sixty fuckin’ people killed--”_

“Good morning to you, too,” Ryoma says.

“Where _were you!?”_ Rantaro yells, clutching his chest in bitter relief. “This isn’t a situation where you _don’t answer your phone--”_

“You gave Kaede a _heart attack,”_ Kirumi interrupts. There was something intentional about how she mentions Kaede and not herself. 

_Where were you!?_ The former pianist repeats, barely waiting for an answer before she tackles the withered strawberry blonde in a bear hug.

“W-W-Well, I--” Miu very visibly recoiled, as if she wasn’t expecting this many, if _anybody_ to be frightened for her safety. “I hid in a toilet stall, or some shit-- I can’t remember!! I-I blacked out like a lightweight at a fuckin’ bridal shower--”

It takes Himiko a few harsh blinks and a thorough rub at her face to finally see Miu clearly. The former inventor is strikingly pale, smudges of mascara left over even after scrubbing it off the prior day, her hair still in that messy ponytail. Strands of it have been pulled out, as if she had been yanking at it viciously. There are red blotches on her forearms and around her neck-- places she had been scratching at. One scratch on her collarbone was beginning to bleed. Her shoulders rise and fall in infrequent, rapid timing, her eyes wide open and hysterical. 

“Y’know, I-I’ve been quiet for _w-way_ too long about this--” She starts, her voice breathy yet booming with adrenaline. She sharply points her accusing finger at the frazzled Tenko. _“You’ve_ been _way too_ suspicious, Miss Andry! You _and_ donkey-lips, over there--!”

Himiko rolls her eyes. Now that her limbs were starting to wake up, her energy was beginning to come back to her. The overall annoyance that _should_ have been directed towards the situation and the hotel and the convention was instead rerouted towards the first person to mildly inconvenienced her. She pushes herself off of the ground, nearly toppling over before she steps defensively in front of Tenko.

“What is your _problem?”_ She whines, audibly tired and exasperated. “We haven’t done _anything_ to you!”

“Did you come in here to start _another_ argument?” Maki sighs, dropping Kaito on the bed and beginning her search through the closet. “Himiko, did you bring bandages of any kind?”

The redhead’s nose twitches in confusion before she realizes that this was _her_ hotel room, “O-Oh, no--”

 _“Another?”_ Miu asks for clarification.

Maki squints, turning harshly towards the former inventor, “We all know about the roof.”

Miu’s face contorts. It’s at this time she begins to notice who is in the hotel room with her. Not only was Kokichi sitting politely on the edge of the bed, but Gonta was also placed awkwardly in the arm chair in the back corner, attempting to make himself as small as his massive structure could muster. It feels claustrophobic all of the sudden. People’s shoulders were beginning to hunch over, as if the room was growing smaller.

 _Okay, you’re here… you’re here…_ Kaede was signing, as if laying out her next course of action in front of her. She was nodding along with it, her eyes closed tightly, _Shuichi. Yes, I should find Shuichi._

“No. Stay here,” Miu interjects, facial expression suddenly stony and voice a lot less emotive. “Himiko, _why_ are you defending her?”

“...Why am I defending her? Um, because she’s my girlfriend and she hasn’t done anything wrong???” The redhead replies with sarcastic confusion.

“Miu..? Y-You’re kinda scaring me a bit, did I do something to you?” Tenko asks weakly.

Kaito grimaces as he presses against his ankle, which causes Maki to swat his hand away, “I don’t think _this_ is the conversation we should be having right now, _s-sixty people are dead_ \--”

“Why don’t you tell _everybody_ where you were during the first gunshot, hm?” Miu disregards anything Kaito says, eyes drilled into the frightened brunette. “‘Stead of sitting on your ass and lying--”

“Miu. Don’t do this again,” Rantaro warns. “If you’re getting angry, then step outside--”

“I-I was in the bathroom…?” Tenko says at the same time. The end of her sentence curves until it sounds like a question. Until it sounds uncertain. Himiko raises an eyebrow.

Miu scoffs, right eye almost twitching, _“That’s_ what you’ve been telling everybody?”

“U-Uh--”

“You were in the _basement!_ Snoopin’ around their computers!!” In the middle of the former inventor’s tirade, Tenko attempts desperately to interrupt her. “And don’t even _try_ to contradict me, ya fuckin’ bobblehead!”

“What were you doing in _there?”_ Maki accuses, turning sharply towards the former aikido master.

Tenko has gone completely silent. Her mouth opens and closes, a few vowels emerging, but no coherent sentence is formed. Himiko’s eyebrows furrow at the sudden revelation. Pale skin? Stuttering sentences? Mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water? Tenko is lying. Tenko is _panicking._

_She… lied?_

Maybe later it would hit her. Maybe later it would be a bit more of a big deal. But all Himiko could see and understand in the present was that Tenko was severely stressing herself out, her palms opening and closing from her sides as she involuntarily cracked at her thumbs. Everybody was starting to talk at once, everybody demanding that Tenko explain or reprimanding Miu for running into the hotel room just to start absolute chaos. Kaede continuously attempts to leave the room in order to collect Shuichi, but somebody, usually Miu, drags her right back into position, as if the blonde was an unwilling right hand man.

“I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to talk about this,” Angie was repeating over the crowd of noise, hands over her ears as she repeatedly shook her head. 

“No! We _are_ talking about this!” Miu interrupts viciously. _“You_ all have ignored the red flags _long enough,_ and _now_ look where we are!!” 

“You can’t _blame us_ for this,” Maki growls.

“Oh? What have _you_ been doin’, board-ass!? Except swapping saliva with your himbo boyfriend!?"

The former assassin’s eyes dim, a frightening expression crossing her features, “Miu, I swear to god, I am going to--”

“Kill me?” Miu completes, before finishing with a horrified laugh. She hysterically throws her arms in the air as the rest of the room begins to yell over her once more. _“Do it!_ We all know you’re _most likely!”_

Maki’s expression softens for the briefest of moments. It was almost as if she was genuinely hurt by that, “I’m on a _blank slate,_ and you really have the nerve to think that I’m just gonna _restart it--!?”_

“Miu, we are _sick_ and _tired_ of you walking around like you own the place, accusing everybody of things they didn’t do!” Kaito snaps, chuckling in disbelief as his girlfriend unconsciously glides away from the conversation. “Calm down! Jesus!”

Kaede is quick to join the conversation, stepping in the center of the hotel room, _Guys, everybody is stressed out, but can we please just take-- Can we please take a few deep breaths and--_

“Kaede, I _don’t know what you’re saying!”_ The former astronaut sighs, gesturing in frustration. “Can you-- Would you _slow down?”_

“You’d _know_ what she was saying if you paid attention to those classes--” Rantaro mutters angrily under his breath. It was obviously not meant to be heard over the wall of sound, but Kaito picks it up, anyways.

“I’m _sorry,_ okay?? I just-- I didn’t have-- What is this even about, where is this going!?”

“Miu thinks Tenko is a traitor,” Himiko summarizes from her own knowledge, face scrunched inwards. 

“G-- I might leave,” Gonta announces awkwardly. Or, at least, he tries to, but too many people were speaking over each other. He very rigidly tries to stand up, but hovers awkwardly upon noticing Miu standing near the very exit he was trying to use. “Everybody seems… To be under lot of pressure--”

“Under pressure~!” Kokichi sings, dancing jubilantly to music that only he can hear. “That brings a building down, splits a family in two--”

“Kokichi, to speak my truth, I am going to _fucking strangle you,”_ Miu grits through her teeth.

Kokichi winks at her, “I _appreciate_ your dedication to dramatic irony!”

Ryoma runs his hands down his face, sliding slowly down the wall with an exasperated sigh. He knows he’s not going to get anywhere, and remaining silent and unmoving like Korekiyo seemed to be the winning tactic, here. A few minutes earlier, Himiko would have done the exact same thing. But this was the present, _not_ a few minutes earlier, and the redhead’s skin was starting to glow red with muted anger.

“Miu, you do realize that you... _also_ had to be in the basement to know that fact, right…?” Himiko practically snarls, her voice still in that iconic monotone. “Y-You look _just_ as suspicious!”

“Yeah! Don’t gang up on Tenko! We should be ganging up on Miu, instead!!” Kokichi encourages, pushing himself righteously to his feet. “All in favor of voting Miu out of the hotel room, say aye!!”

“...Please be quiet,” Korekiyo whispers.

“Aye!!” Kokichi votes, despite nobody else playing along.

“Wh-What!? Now everybody’s attacking me!? Uugh… Wh-Wh-What the fuck did _I_ do!?” Miu whimpers, hands shaking as she curls them in on herself.

 _Nobody’s voting anybody out of the hotel room!_ Kaede signs firmly. Maki exhales heavily before translating to the confused Kaito, _But somebody needs to find Shuichi--_

“What do you _mean,_ ‘what the fuck did I do’?” Himiko echoes, widening a few eyes at her repeated curse word. “Y-You walked in here and started _yelling_ at us for no reason--”

“I _have_ to fuckin’ yell! Nobody here pays any attention if I _don’t!!”_ Miu hisses. 

“But-- But all you’re doing is freaking everybody out!” 

“Please, _be quiet--”_ Korekiyo says for the last time, hunching over. His words are drowned out by the sea of noise. _“She’s--_ You’re too _loud--”_

“They _should be freaked the fuck out!!_ Th-This is _insane!!!”_ The former inventor all but cries. “Not _everybody_ can flip their feelings off like a goddamn light switch!!”

Her words are laced with frantic sobs, her conviction growing weaker as her desperate yelling starts to grow less and less convincing. Her eye contact with Himiko was wavering between the smug Kokichi and the outstandingly guilty-looking Gonta, her eyes glassy with fear and terror. The others in the room were freaking out with her, mirroring her intense panic and sputtering out their own arguments. Yelling at each other with no purpose. Turning against each other. 

“God, you’re right…” Rantaro says, still pacing across the room. His constant movement was only making people more anxious. “This is _Danganronpa,_ we’re talking about. Everybody here has been playing nice for _years,_ we have no _clue_ who is gonna snap and-- Everybody here is basically a professional actor when it comes to--”

“Oh, god… my worst nightmare…” Kokichi breathes, over-exaggerating a shiver. “... _thespians…”_

 _“Shut it,”_ Maki glowers, teeth gritted against each other.

“...We should have expected this, right…?” Angie mumbles under her breath, her focus elsewhere. She's barely breathing. “Maybe we should have… We should have done something so we… We didn’t have to--”

 _“Fuck that!_ We’re already damned here!!” Miu spits venomously, her chest rising infrequently that it would be deemed worrisome by others who weren’t currently arguing with her. “Being stuck here with you losers is the worst hell there is!!”

Himiko’s expression grows unnaturally cold, her cheeks beginning to grow hot at how insensitive the inventor was being. It was _just like her_ to lack the empathy needed to successfully mandate the situation at hand. Himiko knew, deep down, that the strawberry blonde could flip that statement right around and aim it directly at the redhead, but the point of the matter still stood strong. Miu just didn’t know when to _stop._

“The _‘you losers’_ part wasn’t necessary!” Himiko returns, unaware of what she had said.

 _“Sh-Shut up!”_ Miu roars, before turning away to yell at whatever unseen force was around them. “I’m tired of this!! Let us out of here!! _Let us--”_

“Haven’t you had this conversation before?” Kokichi hums.

The room silences.

Himiko could hear every breath, every slight movement. Even Miu freezes, her chest no longer rising in sporadic intervals. They paint a very terrifying still image of a class divided.

“...What?” Miu breathes.

Kokichi titters, his smile corny and otherwise facetious, “Teehee! I remember this conversation so well! You had it back in the killing game, remember? After that flashback light convinced you that the world was over?” He turns towards Himiko, who was still staring at Miu with ruthless conviction. “Even Himiko got her lines right!”

The redhead hadn’t really _tried_ to repeat anything. But after a long pause, after a long moment of consideration, she realizes with a lingering feeling of dread that they _have_ had this conversation before. Sentence for sentence. Word for word. It was uncanny how similar it was. 

It kinda stumps Himiko for a second. It’s as if her brain buffers in the middle of that hotel room, as if it turns off and back on, restarts. She can almost hear the gears stopping and rewinding in her mind. Everything slows. 

She has to take a step back, has to close her eyes and remind herself that this was real life. It was just a freaky coincidence. It didn’t mean anything at all. Some old writing was just peeking out from under the floorboards, that’s it. Repetition didn’t mean anything if she was still in control of how she felt, if she was still in control of her actions and her emotions. She was… in control of those things. She could feel the rug against her toes, she could hear Tenko’s breathing from next to her. Those few sentences of repetition did not mean anything if Himiko willed it so.

But the repetition seemed to be bugging Miu. The former inventor was always _horrifying_ when she was completely silent, simply because she almost never is. So in those few moments where she completely freezes, her body still and her eyes glazed over, you have a sure tell sign of serious emotional turmoil. There was no other way to tell what she could possibly be thinking. Himiko had no way of knowing just what was running through Miu’s head.

Kokichi notices the former inventor’s silence and gasps dramatically, “Oh no, Miu…. You know what that means…” His glance at Gonta doesn’t go unnoticed. “Welp! I better leave before you get any ideas.”

“I believe we should all leave,” Kirumi says, words short and clipped. It’s the first time she’s spoken in a while, unresponsive to the argument. She stares sympathetically at Korekiyo, who was muttering hysterically under his breath. “...If not to the dining hall, then at least somewhere away from here.”

Total silence overcomes them. 

Himiko’s eyes still drill into Miu, unmoving and rather chilling. The former inventor was slowly beginning to move once more. She starts with returning the rather startling eye contact with the redhead, before it shifts distractedly over towards Kaede. The former pianist in question had been the first person to break the silence by starting a side-conversation with Rantaro, gesturing about walking out of the room for perhaps the sixth time already. The noise begins to increase, the sound scraping up Himiko’s spine until it’s suddenly back to its full power. As if the quiet had never existed at all. As if the silence was a slight hiccup, or if it wasn’t significant. To Himiko, it wasn’t. To Miu, it very clearly was.

Miu begins breathing again. At first it’s slow, uncoordinated and unrhythmic, until it starts to quicken and accelerate. People continued their frenzied discussions, glancing over the former inventor, leaving her unsupervised as she sharply turns towards the closet and whips open the doors.

Himiko, who still hasn’t broken her stare at Miu, is the first to notice the strawberry blonde scavenging through her hotel room.

“Hey, what are you...?”

Miu has no response. She continues to throw clothes over her shoulder, hunting through coat hangers and hotel-provided robes. Kaede flashes her a confused grimace before turning back to Rantaro. Everybody is too busy to acknowledge her.

“Miu,” Himiko says, just to let the former inventor know that she _was_ in fact watching her as the strawberry blonde turned the place upside down. “Miu, _stop,_ what are you--”

“Where do you keep-- Where do keep the--” Was all Himiko managed to grasp of her breathy monologue, before Miu shut the closet doors with a severity of emotion that Himiko found slightly concerning. Her hand was over her chest, as if feeling for a heart beat. “Shit-- I can’t _breathe--”_

She pushes herself off of the closet doors, diving for one of the nightstands. Himiko knows that her prescriptions are in the cupboard she was about to open, so naturally she feels inclined to protect it before Miu grabs at it. The plan seemed pretty reasonable in theory: Grab Miu’s shoulder and spin her around, just to let the strawberry blonde know that she wasn’t allowed to snoop in Himiko’s private stuff no matter _how_ irrationally anxious she was currently. 

But Himiko realizes perhaps a milli-second too late that being snuck up on was Miu’s weakness.

It goes by _really_ quickly. Himiko grabs at Miu’s shoulder, demanding that she get a hold of herself and _get out of the hotel room._ The strawberry blonde flinches immensely at her touch, her skin icy and cold under Himiko’s fingers, her eyes wide and frantic. She flips around with the speed of a bullet, yells at the former mage not to touch her with a terror in her voice that chills the redhead to her core, before she shoves Himiko directly into the corner of the bed frame.

The pain that shoots up Himiko’s back is instant. There’s a moment where she can’t do anything but lie pathetically on the floor, wincing in agony, an insufferable ache already starting to throb where her back connected with the corner. The bed frame wasn’t incredibly sharp, and its skeleton had been covered in a somewhat softer fabric to match the aesthetic of the room, but it still stabbed into her skin, drilling into her ribs. It was definitely going to bruise. There was blood from a particularly scraped area that was already seeping into the back of her pajama shirt. It was already starting to hurt when she breathed, as if she couldn’t take a big enough inhale without a sting of pain spiking through her body.

It went back to silence again for a few seconds, the entire room gasping in unison. Bu it takes a lot less this time around for the class to jump back into action, picking Himiko up from the floor and yelling and arguing and _screaming_ and _shouting_ at Miu, who was already crying and hyperventilating and trying desperately to apologize to the redhead. Tenko, who has had _enough_ of whatever the hell Miu was on, barks at the former inventor with force that Himiko hasn’t seen from the brunette in quite some time.

 _“Get out!”_ She orders. She holds Himiko with one hand and gestures furiously at the door with the other. _“Get out of here!”_

Miu almost immediately follows that direction, stumbling out of the hotel room.

Somebody presses against the bruising area on Himiko's back. The pain that shoots up her body, paired with the severity of everything around her, is enough to knock the redhead unconscious once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 40/40
> 
> himiko: hey guys wanna see how fast i can faint *passes tf out*


	20. but "smart girl" only gets a girl so far

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> miu joins a fun new group!

Miu is pathetic.

It’s basically a known fact that every single thing that comes to the former inventor’s brain is one hundred and ten percent accurate, with absolutely no possible chance of fallibility or error, ever. This means that when she thinks she’s pathetic, she is pathetic. There’s no way she is wrong about that, because if Miu Iruma thinks something is right then it is right, and if she thinks she’s pathetic then she  _ is _ pathetic. It’s a narrow road that leads her directly into a fit of self-loathing, a straight pathway that she stubbornly refuses to step off of, a depressive spiral that she was unwilling to move away from.

She’s not sure where she is, to be quite honest. The last few moments were a complete blur, a total haze. She could only assume that she left the hotel room and took the elevator somewhere, walking in directions unknown and racing to a location unidentified. She was almost thankful for the sudden blackout in memory, because it surely would have been embarrassing to remember herself hysterically running through the halls and tapping against walls to check if they were real and avoiding people like they were the plague and double-checking behind her every five seconds.

Miu had a much greater grip on reality now, however fleeting that was, and has found herself materializing in some sort of theatre. She was in the back row, a dark wood wall to her right and a row of dark green seats to her left, staring lousily at the arched ceiling. It’s a theatre-in-the-round, and she’s taken the row to the left of the room. She presumes it’s the Iris Ballroom, if she were to strain herself hard enough to figure out where she had landed after her attack. It must have been opened after the first massacre. Really nice to know that the merciless slaughter of sixty people earned them a fucking theatre.

Her body feels heavy. She was laying on the USB and hotel keycards in her back pockets that Aoi gave her, and damn were they uncomfortable. There’s something weighing her down, as if gravity has honed in on her misery and increased tenfold. Miu hated not doing anything, hated resting and lying still, because it allowed her mind to run completely wild without distraction. Her thoughts were hazy, her brain exhausted and her entire body aching with dread and agony. She just couldn’t move. There was a subconscious part of her that begged her to do  _ something _ worthwhile, but it is overcome with incredible fatigue.

Repetition was not Miu’s friend. The more she thinks about it, the more her chest constricts and tightens once more. Things were slowing down, stopping and rewinding. First it’s the wake up from the coma, then it’s another killing game starting. And next it’s gonna be shoving everybody away and then panicking and freaking out and then coming up with plans that scare even herself. And then somebody’s gonna come up and strangle her,  _ again,  _ because she just can’t see herself surviving unless she takes matters into her own hands and she can’t even bear to  _ think about _ killing someone unless it’s--

Yiiiiikes. Oh, crap. If another attack is going to start, she barely holds the energy to stop it. There’s no way she’s pushing herself off of this floor, no  _ way _ she’s even  _ thinking _ about standing up to find help. And it wasn’t like she would ask for help, anyways. And it’s also not like anybody would give it to her.

Grounding herself was the only possible way. She was in the Iris Ballroom. She was in the  _ Iris Ballroom, _ not in an academy or on a roof. Or even in a car, if this attack was going to stretch into the depths of her trauma. She can feel the polished wood tiling underneath her fingertips and the dust that is beginning to accumulate, as well. Everything still feels incredibly heavy, her head weighty and her arms limp at her sides. The room is almost completely silent, save for the humming of the air conditioner and--

“Has this door always been unlocked?”

“Who cares. We’re in, doesn’t matter.”

Somebody has entered. A group, if the footsteps said anything. Miu tenses immediately, her vision hazy and her breathing thin. 

“W-Where is it--?”

“Keep it down, there might be people outside.”

“Y’know, things would be a lot quieter if you  _ closed the door.” _

“Oh-- Yeah, haha.”

The door closes. The group begins to travel inwards, their shoes clacking against the stage as they shuffle towards the back of the room. Was it a group of four? Five, maybe? The noises meld together and blur in the former inventor’s ears. 

They definitely don’t notice Miu, at least not until she sniffles quite loudly.

“What was that?” One of them immediately questions, showing off their bat-like hearing.

Miu doesn’t reply. She stays silent on the floor, gluing her arms to the ground.

“Hey, is somebody in here?” Another asks. Her voice is deeper, less audibly frazzled, like the rest of them. “You’re not in trouble, or anything...”

_ You’re not in trouble. _ Somehow, Miu just couldn’t believe it. But she finds herself weakly raising an arm, anyways, pathetically alerting the anonymous crew to her location. She was not going to move, though. If they wanted her to leave, they would have to drag the mentally and physically exhausted former inventor out of this theatre themselves.

“I got ‘em,” The same woman with a deep voice says. The sound of footsteps climbing up the stairs follows, before Akane Owari appears overhead, looking oddly calm. “Uh… you doin’ alright, kid?”

Obviously fucking not. Miu would have thought that was clear to see, “....Sure, lady.”

“Who is it?” Someone asks, running up the stairs to get the answer themselves. Fuyuhiko pokes his head out from the row of chairs, his eyes narrowing as he notices the strawberry blonde. “Tch. It’s the inventor from 53.”

“Tell ‘er to get outta here,” A man calls from the center of the theatre.

Fuyuhiko clicks his tongue, “You heard the man. There’s a meeting in the dining hall you’re missing.”

Miu inhales sharply before releasing a long, guttural sigh, stretching her arms very, very slowly. The others in the room watch with disgruntled expressions as she slowly shifts around, taking her sweet time, with absolutely no energy to stand up herself. Akane stares at the strawberry blonde for a few moments, before her eyebrows furrow in what Miu could only guess was sympathy.

“Here, I got you,” She says, stepping to Miu’s side and extending her arm. 

The former inventor clasps at it with her own shaky hands. Not even a second later, she is yanked ferociously to her feet by the gymnast, yipping as she stumbles. The world spins. Her legs wobble. Akane has to catch her before she collapses again.

The squad that assembled within the Iris Ballroom seemed rather unconventional to be your typical friend group. Akane and Fuyuhiko were already an odd pair, but because of their similar season and survival status, Miu could let it slide. To add to this mix, a visibly tense Mondo Owada and the ever-radiant Sayaka Maizono, with the latter running her fingers through her matted blue hair uneasily. Kazuichi Souda marches up to a massive steel cabinet positioned in the back of the theatre, a welding mask over his face and a blowtorch in his hands once more. A stony Peko Pekoyama carries a gas tank. Two others with varied talents occupy the front doors, both of whom weren’t important enough in Miu’s mind to be named.

Mondo sees her and gestures towards the exit with his head, “Out. Sorry, kid. Not your business.”

“... _ What’s…. _ not my-- my fucking business?” Miu slurs, her words melding together. The words spill out of her mouth, her brain skipping over them so immediately that it feels as if she never said them in the first place.

“...We’re just… doing things that you can’t--” In the middle of his vague explanation, Kazuichi plops himself in front of the iron cabinet and immediately begins setting up the blowtorch. Peko practically slams the gas tank down, causing a whole ton of people to flinch. Mondo sighs in exasperation. “Guys,  _ what _ did I say about making sure nobody was in the room before--?”

Alright, well they were obviously trying to get into that locker. It’s the first time that Miu has noticed it. Her surroundings were still relatively hazy, but the iron cabinet was definitely beginning to clear as her vision stabilized. It didn’t look all too special, but this  _ was _ the Iris Ballroom, right? Miu was trying desperately to remember the little information she was given about this location while on her tour. It was a theatre-in-the-round, of course, but it had a specific purpose. And the safety padding that covered the entirety of the stage implied it was for fighting. So if this was the physical and fighting studio, and there’s an iron locker that has been sealed shut with an electronic lock, then that can only mean--  _ Then that can only mean-- _

“That’s-- That’s the--” She finds herself stuttering, raising a shaky yet accusing finger at the cabinet. “Y-You’re opening a fucking weapons locker!?”

“Nah. We’re  _ blowtorching _ a fucking weapons locker,” Akane corrects with an oblivious thumbs up. Sayaka’s eyes narrow at the use of crude language, her eyes shifting over at Miu, as if telling the gymnast to speak a bit cleaner. Which was hilarious, considering Akane was  _ copying Miu. _

Mondo stares at the brunette sarcastically for a solid eight count before turning back to Miu, “I’ve told you once, I’ll tell ya again. This isn’t your business--”

“Sh-Shut the hell up, cob-head! I heard you the first time!” Perhaps it’s the post-attack nerves that were fueling Miu’s anger. “This just  _ became _ m-my business. D-D-Did your brain funnel out of that hair of yours, or something!? Do you not re-- remember what just happened in the--”

“Are we gonna have to drag you outta this place!?” Mondo barks over her ranting. His purple irises furiously narrow in on the brunette next to her. “Akane?”

The Ultimate Gymnast hears his order, but she doesn’t move to grab at Miu. Instead, she scratches the inside of her ear with a sudden seriousness to her expression, “I dunno. Why not just tell her? It’s not like we’re  _ doing _ anything.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t… the poor girl looks terrified enough as is it…” Sayaka murmurs. Miu overhears and immediately sours.

“Suck my entire dick, Miku!” She says, her words still melding together to the point where she almost sounds drunk on her exhaustion and heightened anxiety. “I-I-I am so fucking…  _ calm.  _ I am the most--  _ the _ most calm person you have ever met in your puny life.”

“Well. I’m convinced,” Fuyuhiko sneers sarcastically as Kazuichi activates the blowtorch behind him, beginning their destruction of the weapons locker despite Miu still being in the room. “And I say whatever, y’know? People are gonna find out eventually.”

“Find out  _ what?” _

Sayaka turns towards Mondo. There’s a moment where they stare at each other silently, holding a conversation without words, their heads tilting in mute discussion. It’s the first time Miu realizes the pop sensation was trembling, her skin pale and her hands clasped tightly together at her chest. As Miu turns her head towards the rest of the group, she can’t help but notice how truly disorganized and rigid they were all acting, their body’s stiff with an overwhelming sense of urgency and severity. Peko and Kazuichi are hauntingly still, frozen as they stare at the burning iron doors. Fuyuhiko shoves his hands into his pockets, head snapping towards anything that makes movement or noise. Akane, who Miu could only presume was intentionally preventing herself from showing weakness, was beginning to absentmindedly braid the inventor’s noticeably matted hair. Miu would slap her off, but she had the feeling the gymnast could dropkick her over the rows of seats and onto that stage.

As the pair in front of Miu conclude their silent argument, it’s the Ultimate Pop Sensation who eventually caves and sighs.

“Due to…” Her breath hitches for a moment, and it takes another second to resume as she exhales shakily. “... _ Recent events, _ Mondo thought that it might be best if we make a… sort of a--”

“Enforcement team,” The Ultimate Biker Gang Leader finishes. His expression is stern, yet oddly determined. “To keep people safe and figure out what the hell is goin’ on.”

“E-Enforce--” In the middle of her own sentence, Miu sneaks a peek at the iron locker and the blowtorch. The metal was already beginning to melt and disfigure, the cabinet unwillingly opening. “...Does Makoto know about this?”

“...He’s  _ aware _ of the possibility,” He replies. He must be talking about the conversation they had in the basement: The conversation where he had suggested to the Ultimate Hope that they begin an enforcement team just to keep people from going absolutely crazy.

But,  _ holy shit, _ did they really need weapons to do that?

“W-We weren’t going to use them initially. But after everything that’s happened, we kinda thought… maybe it was for the best. You know, for protection?” Sayaka answers timidly.

Miu blinks at her, brain not processing quick enough, “...H-How did you know I was thinking that?”

“I’m psychic,” She deadpans. 

Mondo sighs, “Good intuition.” 

“The best,” Sayaka nods.

The strawberry blonde finds herself shaking her head slowly, her legs shaking from under her until she eventually has to lean against the wall behind her. Akane is there to catch her if she was to crumble to the floor again, “P-People aren’t gonna-- They’re not gonna take too fuckin’ kindly to a bunch a’ randos flinging guns around--”

“I told you we should have kicked her out,” Mondo mumbles under his breath, teeth beginning to grit as he very noticeably attempts to swallow his anger.

“It’s nothin’ like that! Seriously,” Akane says over him, her smile wide and overcompensating. “If people are  _ really _ gettin’ outta hand, then we’ll just… beat ‘em up a little!”

“With  _ guns!?!?”  _ Miu reiterates. 

_ “No,”  _ Practically everybody says at once, stuttering over each other to justify their actions. Miu just manages to pick up phrases here and there.  _ We need some order in this building. Makoto’s methods aren’t working, they’re idealistic and naive. The weapons are only to keep the order, we won’t use them unless we have to, we aren’t going to kill anybody with them. Don’t you  _ want _ protection? _

“I don’t need ‘em, anyways!” Akane says. It’s a little refreshing that she’s the only one not desperately trying to convince the inventor of why opening a cabinet of weapons was a good idea. She doesn’t know whether it was a good thing or not, but Miu was kinda starting to believe them a little. “Not when I’ve got Betsy--” Akane raises her right fist. “And Betsy 2,” She raises her left.

“You-- You named both of them Betsy?” Miu warbles, her voice high. 

Akane opens her mouth to respond, but Mondo beats her to the punch, “Alright. Happy, now? That’s what we’re doing. Now scram, Makoto’s holding a meeting.”

_ Who cares? _ Miu’s opinion of Makoto was damn complicated, that’s for sure. He seemed like a pretty okay dude, when he  _ wasn’t _ under that happy-go-lucky kissass facade he falls under whenever he speaks to other people, but for fuck’s sake was he getting on Miu’s nerves. Maybe it can’t all be blamed on him solely, but his philosophy of “don’t tell people anything and allow the  _ adults _ to take care of it, miu, we will protect you and-- oh no! Everybody is dead now!” was seriously flawed. She held serious doubts that the meeting in the dining hall would be productive, nor will Makoto actually be able to explain what was going on. Either he knew everything and was being told not to say much by Danganronpa, or he knew absolutely nothing at all. There was no in between.

“I couldn’t care  _ less _ what that hope moron has to say,” Miu grumbles. It was harsh, and not very true, but the inventor says it, anyways. 

“That makes two of us,” Fuyuhiko says. Akane lifts a hand with three fingers. ‘That makes three’, she adds without words.

“Hey… don’t-- don’t be too mean….” Sayaka hums, her hands nervously folded in front of her. “He’s doing his best! These aren’t exactly… e-easy circumstances to be dealing with...”

It’s true. They weren’t. There’s no way Makoto was  _ expecting _ to stroll into the hotel and then get told he has to kill thirty people at the risk of  _ double the amount  _ being slaughtered, unless he had devised the entire thing himself. And then, the next morning, he has to deal with the moral discussion of what he can possibly do when asked to kill  _ forty people, _ now fully aware of the consequences of inaction. 

That changes everything. Makoto  _ has _ to do something, now. The implications frightened Miu to no end. He already tried to do nothing, already  _ tried _ to let things unfold and see what happens, but now he knows that inaction means even more death. Surely he couldn’t do that again, right…? Surely he couldn’t sit by and let eighty more people die, right? Those eighty people would die to his hands, would die because of  _ his _ lack of action. He wouldn’t do that again, unless he truly believed that it was more morally justifiable to not take other people’s lives into his own hands, and allow those eighty people to succumb to their own fates…? 

Participants know that Makoto wasn’t going to do that, or at least they strongly believe he won’t. That means it’s survival of the fittest in this hotel. That means it’s every man for himself. Order should be good, right?  _ Enforcement _ should be good. That’s what Mondo and this team of people were doing, they just wanted to maintain order before anybody got out of hand. Because people  _ will _ start to get out of hand, people  _ will _ start to take this threat seriously now that there are consequences. And being on this side of things, the side where order is maintained and nobody can even think about hurting her because she’s strong and powerful… that was the smart thing to do, right? That was… the smartest thing to do?

Miu couldn’t survive this thing off of wits alone, even if she had wits for days. Other people were just as witty, other people were just as determined to live. Other people were probably even  _ more _ determined to live, now that she thinks about it, so determined that they would make sure that forty person quota was filled no matter what. She needs protection. She will not do well without it. 

Miu’s eyes have turned towards the blowtorch and its scorching flame, the slow yet steady melting of the iron locker occupying her vision as it remains fixated on the cabinet. They wanted protection, as well. They had that in common. So, surely, it would be reasonable for her to--

“Let me help,” She says.

Mondo snorts, a knee-jerk reaction to her silent offer, before he realizes with slight disbelief, “Oh, you weren’t kidding?”

Miu shrugs, face hardened, “All of you are pure brawn and nothin’ else, except Smurfette over here,” Sayaka blinks at the nickname. “You  _ obviously _ need a gorgeous girl genius like myself!”

“...Don’t be ridiculous. We’re fine without--”

“All a’ your brains are filled with hot air! I can  _ guarantee _ you right now that I am the smartest bitch in this room,” The former inventor snarls, weakly tossing hair over her shoulder. Akane releases air through her teeth as Miu wrecks the horrible braid she was working on. “L-Let me help, and I will give you a piece of very important information... Regarding that locker you’re trying to bust open.” 

Everybody turns towards the iron cabinet. Kazuichi’s blowtorch was still activated, melting the iron door very slowly. It would take quite some time before they would be able to reach inside the cabinet and grab anything.

“What is it?” Peko asks. It’s the first time she’s spoken in a bit. Perhaps even she has realized the copious amount of time this blowtorch would take.

“Nuh-uh. Let me in the group,” Miu refuses childishly. 

“How important is it?”

“I-It’ll be so mind-blowing that they’ll be scraping your brain bits off the moon!”

“Kid, you’ve gotta be insane,” Mondo retorts. 

“No, no, no. Be gentle. She’s definitely going through something right now,” Sayaka whispers, like a zookeeper approaching a wild animal. She places both of her hands on her knees, her smile reaching her ears as she begins to speak much more slowly. “You must be  _ very  _ smart. We  _ appreciate  _ your offer, however this is a little  _ dangerous _ for a child--”

“G-Get off my balls, lady!!” The former inventor hisses, her arms recoiling into her chest. “I-I'm not going through  _ shit!!”  _

“Mew Mew’s not a kid,” Akane says.

Miu’s right eye twitches, “I-It’s  _ Miu--” _

“We all came from a killing game, so I don’t really get why  _ we’re  _ the adults and  _ she’s _ the kid, y’know…” The Ultimate Gymnast continues, disregarding Miu’s correction. For a rather intelligent observation, she speaks with a tone that implies uncertainty, scratching the back of her unkempt hair. “‘Sides, she’s real smart! The swimmer girl from Future Foundation gave her… tech thingies, to work on the electronic locks?”

Miu shakily pats at the USB and hotel key cards in her back pockets. Now that she’s reminded, she needs to get to K1-B0 and install the system. All she needed to do was get promised protection with whatever this group was calling themselves, and then she’s free to work on her own projects  _ alone. _ Without the constant fear of death looming over her.

“This USB?” Miu asks, waving the item in her hands. It confirms the story. She nearly drops it with how much she was trembling, which dulled the sentiment a bit, but she catches it and gestures with it, anyways.

Mondo’s shoulders deflate at the item in her hands, a sure tell sign that he was wrong and she was right. The group falls into silence again, with nothing but the blowtorch occupying it. They were growing impatient at the fire’s incredibly slow, incredibly infuriating destruction of the cabinet they were so desperate to get into. Miu held information over their heads with a false air of confidence, of one so flimsy and see-through that it was simple to see that the former inventor was basically desperate, desperate for protection and desperate to be on the  _ right _ side of this story before she’s thrown to the sharks. 

Her class can go fuck themselves. Nobody in Season 53 was going to lend her any help, and nobody in her class was going to protect anybody but themselves. Miu clumps the class together under her red lens until all she sees of her peers is their own selfish desires, their own desperation to live. And that desperation does not include her, she knows that for certain. They have formed their own circle, closing Miu out and leaving her to the vultures. Maybe it was up to  _ Miu _ to strangle those vultures and make her own damn circle. Be the vulture, or some metaphorical shit.

Mondo obviously wasn’t too keen on including the former inventor in whatever this was. Sayaka was staring at the iron locker, like the rest of them were, her striking blue eyes wide and contemplative. There’s something dark behind her expression, a feeling of deep thought that Miu just couldn’t decipher, a distant memory that passes by. Mondo looks just as distant, but his eyebrows are furrowed and his lips and sealed into a stern frown. His eyes drift over towards Akane, who in return shrugs at him.

“She won’t be doing anything bad,” She says vaguely. Fuyuhiko hums in agreement, making his descent down the stairs and towards the weapons locker.

“It would also be appreciated if we knew the information she has on this locker,” Peko adds.

Mondo inhales deeply before groaning in tired exasperation. His eyes close and for a moment it looks as if he was going to stay like that, standing rigidly in the middle of the theatre, before he opens his eyes once more and turns to Sayaka.

“I’m not makin’ the call,” He says, throwing his arms up in surrender. Miu simpers slightly at his willing defeat, knowing that he was perhaps the most adamant (and most rational) person there.

Sayaka notices how all eyes were on her, and slowly turns back to face the former inventor. Their eyes meet. A chill runs up Miu’s spine, an almost cold feeling of being read running through her. Read like a goddamn book. 

Sayaka’s smile returns once more, “Okay! We could use your help.”

“Whatever. What’s the information?” Mondo immediately demands, perhaps expecting that Sayaka wouldn’t turn Miu down.

“Bahaha! The thing was unlocked this whole time, morons! You were  _ right _ to add me to this team,” The strawberry blonde cackles facetiously, her laughs warbling with nerves. She stifles a smile, making an awkward explosion gesture with her hand. “Booyah.”

The blowtorch stops. Kazuichi lifts his welding mask over his face, revealing pale skin and a bleeding bottom lip from where he had been gnawing at it anxiously. With relative ease, he pushes himself off of the ground and opens the unlocked iron locker. He stands for a few seconds before sighing at himself. Even Peko, who had been preoccupied with staring directly at the flame, finds herself closing her eyes in disappointment.

It was a weapons locker, alright, one that shouldn’t have been opened to the general public. Miu knew that dangerous people were in this building, knew that many participants had  _ dangerous _ talents, so… in a  _ way… _ it made sense for certain weapons to be here as means of showcasing these specific talents to an audience. In a way. Of course, now that this situation was upon them, now that murder was not only allowed but  _ encouraged _ in this warped convention, it was very,  _ very _ stupid of Danganronpa to place these highly dangerous, lethal weapons in full view, with only one electronic lock to block them. An electronic lock that had been deactivated after a mass slaughter sent a thousand people into panic and paranoia, the exact time the lock  _ should _ have remained on. 

Kazuichi whistles, teetering away from the cabinet, “J-Jeez, man… Good thing we got to this first.”

Yes. That was a good thing, Miu supposes. Good thing these people reached the cabinet before anybody with ill intentions even thought about grabbing it. It was a good thing these total strangers found the vault of weapons before the other total strangers found it.

The mechanic was prodding at the lock on the cabinet. It was yellow, a color Miu hasn’t seen before. Does this mean every yellow lock was deactivated, now…?

“I should be able to reactivate this,” Kazuichi offers, “...Maybe.”

“Well, we  _ apparently _ have a fu-- a  _ freaking _ inventor on our side, now,” Mondo grits, correcting his curse word upon noticing the sharp glare from Sayaka to watch his language. “And if we can’t get it relocked, then I’ll watch the doors, or something.”

“Good,” Sayaka nods, voice fading as her gaze once again unfocuses. “This is good. This is… what we should be doing.”

“What do we do about Makoto?” Fuyuhiko asks bitterly, “No doubt he’s gonna find out soon enough.”

“I’ll talk to him again. ‘Bout time someone knocked some sense into that guy,” Mondo offers, “But for now, you guys‘ve got a meeting to head to.”

Most of them mutter and rumble towards the exit, acknowledging that receiving information from Makoto would only assist them in this pursuit. Besides, if they want to work  _ together _ with the Ultimate Hope, then the best thing to do was understand what he was going to do moving forward and weave their own ideas into his. And if he doesn’t agree, then… Miu wasn’t too sure. But Mondo was a pretty scary guy, stature wise. And Peko could probably kill somebody with her glare. I mean, the remnants definitely  _ have _ killed somebody before. That was kind of… a plot point of their season.

Actually, now that she thinks about it, Miu is pretty sure she just volunteered to help out a room full of killers.

“You comin’?” Akane asks. She’s halfway down the stairs already. Most of the group have already left. Miu can hear them in the hallway that Mondo was now thoroughly guarding. 

The former inventor looks down at her baggy pajamas, down at her Hello Kitty sweatpants and grey t-shirt with vague words of inspiration plastered on front. Her gaze slowly moves up to see Akane dressed in her much more fitting attire, consisting of a long sleeve athletic shirt with a zip up the front of it and navy track pants.

“...No,” Miu has to clarify, since the sarcastic look of comparison between their outfits wasn’t sending the girl any hints.

“Eh, fair enough. Lemme walk you to your hotel room, then,” She says. It’s barely a choice, more like a requirement. A non negotiable offer to either walk her to the dining hall (which Miu would rather die than do) or walk her back to her hotel room (which Kaede will probably be in, so while it is the lesser of two evils, Miu will still undeniably suffer). 

“I-I don’t need a goddamn babysitter…” The strawberry blonde mumbles, playing with her hair as she walks down the stairs shakily. She meets the gymnast at the bottom despite audible objections.

“I’m Akane, by the way,” The girl formally introduces, “Nice to meetcha!”

Miu wants to say something along the lines of how she already knows that, of how she had already introduced herself when she handed over the USB, of how there was a sticker on her shirt that  _ said her name, _ but found herself way too tired to do so, “Miu.”

“Cool! So, Ultimate Inventor, right? How’s that work? Is it just building robots and…”

Her voice fades. The locker is opened, but it remains untouched for now. 

Her body still feels remarkably heavy, her limbs tired and drooping at her sides. Akane had so much energy and this almost bouncy air of confidence that radiated from her, strength that Miu  _ wished _ she had, an almost naive sense of toughness that beamed from her assured and rather oblivious grin. Nobody else in her new group had that same confidence, despite most of them being Tough Cool Guys who cross their arms and act all high and mighty. 

Was it weird to say that it sort of made Miu feel a little better? Knowing that at least  _ somebody _ was optimistic, yet still realistic about their goals? Not falsely hopeful and overly cheerful like Makoto, who would probably just start preaching about having hope and remaining calm as the Future Foundation figures everything out, but still positive? Still trying to stay sane? It might just be her personality that was making her not as aware of the severity of the situation, aloof with her emotions. Sorta like the redhead that Miu had just slammed directly into a bed frame. Shit, that looked painful. Or, Miu presumes it did, because honestly her vision was starting to black out around then. Maybe she should apologize. Not now, and probably not in the next few days, assuming that her wounded pride still haunted her.

Mondo barely glances at the pair as they exit, still grumbling under his breath about the fact that he has now unwillingly roped a teenager into this enforcement team of his. His attentive stare remains vigilantly on the iron locker. If you squinted from here, you could just about see a few rifles. Maybe for an Ultimate Hitman. Or an Ultimate Sniper. An Ultimate Assassin, perhaps. 

Miu’s walking down the hallway when she realizes that she doesn’t know how to shoot a gun. Maybe she’ll learn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 40/40
> 
> i hope everyone's having a nice day! :D


	21. god knows i could make amends, but i've got an angry heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tiny conversations and a new enemy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> drink some water, i hope everybody is doing okay!! (especially if youre going through the american elections rn) <33

This SUCKS and it hurts to BREATHE. 

Himiko’s back is bruising, alright. And fast. Kirumi had taken a look at it once Himiko woke up (which was about thirtyish minutes after her blackout) and stated that while the shove didn’t break any ribs, it will definitely hurt for a few days at least as it heals. Himiko couldn’t exactly see the mark on her back, couldn’t exactly see the tiny gash that had been bleeding up until Kirumi placed a damp towel on it, but she can definitely feel it. And all she feels is pain.

Her breaths are as hollow as she could possibly muster, yet a sharp pang of pain still spikes through her every time she inhales. Tenko keeps looking over with pity every time she winces or exhales in a manner that sounds agonized. Sitting down has sort of helped, but not a whole ton.

The dining hall was almost pitifully empty. Tables upon tables were completely vacant, hundreds of chairs unoccupied. Only a few participants from various separate classes had arrived, scattering themselves across the room and nervously glancing at each other from opposite ends of the hall. Not even the entirety of Himiko’s own class had shown up, in fact many of them had remained in their own hotel rooms or went to search for another way out of the building. The only people who showed up to the meeting were Himiko herself, Tenko, Kirumi, and Rantaro. Korekiyo looked like he was going to join for a split second, but then quickly disconnected from the group, all the while clutching at his own head and muttering frantically under his breath. 

“Anybody want this…?” Rantaro mumbles, shoving half-eaten eggs towards the center of the table. Everybody shakes their head. Nobody was hungry.

A group of Future Foundation members were up front, huddled in a circle and speaking in a dangerously low tone. Plotting. All of them looked rather uncertain. Makoto was sitting on a chair, still in the circle but most certainly not a part of their conversation, his head cradled in his hands. Himiko can’t see his face, but it surely wasn’t pleasant. His girlfriend is nowhere to be seen in the dining hall, and Byakuya was also gone from his side, where he usually stood with vigilance. The Ultimate Hope is freakishly silent. The  _ room  _ is freakishly silent. Himiko had signed in, grabbed her “Day 2” nametag, and sat down in total silence. Total quiet. It was a nice contrast to the loud argument she had just arrived from.

One final group enters the room, a rather odd assortment of characters meandering into the dining hall with stern expressions. They all assemble at a collective table, none of them sitting where they were supposed to, mumbling at each other. Himiko recognized Akane and the Ultimate Pop Sensation, but not many others. They were the largest group there and looked like the kind of people that would take Himiko’s lunch money in elementary school.

Makoto shuffles up to the microphone. He looks so tired.  _ Mortified. _ A Danganronpa official trails him, whispering things to him, adjusting the microphone. Makoto only nods. His gaze was distant, his eyes unfocused and distracted.

It takes him a moment, but he eventually sees the crowd. He looks terrified. Terrified of  _ them _ . Terrified of what they will say to him. He stands stiffly, as if one bad comment would instantly crumble him.

“Don’t use the mic, man,” Leon says, way up the front. “Just talk to us.”

Makoto nods, stepping away from the preset microphone and rigidly moving towards the crowd. He scans over the remarkably tiny audience, sighs, and gestures the people in the back closer to him. The crowd assembles in a small circle, sitting in chairs they shouldn’t be sitting in and plopping themselves inelegantly onto tables. Everybody seemed willing to take orders, which was good for the fragile Makoto. Everybody who was pissed off hadn’t shown up. 

Himiko was almost worried that Miu didn’t show up. What was originally anger had sort of morphed into this bitter regret, a recognized sympathy. While Himiko couldn’t understand her emotions during the argument, they began to make a little more sense to her once she left the conversation. Kaede was looking for the former inventor, though, so it should be okay. Hopefully. However, it didn’t stop Himiko’s  _ goddamn back from hurting like absolute hell-- _

“O-Okay… Whew. Alright, hi, guys,” Of course Makoto was smiling again. It’s undeniably false and a lot weaker, but of course.  _ Of course. _ “U-Um, first things first… I will assure you, personally, that we will  _ not _ reach Day 4 of this convention. This is-- This is very important to us, and I know that… that everything looks…” His voice drifts off, like he was expecting pushback. Everybody in the audience stares at him with dread in their eyes, melancholic features ridden across their faces. There’s a beat before he continues. “We are going to avoid the threat for as long as possible. Finding a way out is our top priority, a-and finding out who… is, um, behind this… is up next.”

_ Finding out who is behind this. _ To think that somebody in this hotel would actively want to kill this many people was honestly sick. And it made Himiko sick in return. There’s a lump deep in the back of her throat that stayed stuck there, a disgusted sob of some kind remaining buried in the depths of her gut.

“What if we  _ can’t _ avoid the threat?” It’s the Ultimate Photographer from Season 2, who had arrived in sweatpants and a hoodie. There was something so distinct about the  _ ‘save all questions until the end’ _ meeting they had had the first day here compared to the informality of this meeting. “How are you-- By what standards are you choosing forty people?”

“We aren’t going to choose forty--”

“You might have to.  _ We _ might have to.”

_ “We _ won’t. We’re really trying not to--” 

“You can’t just  _ wait _ for forty people to die,” Fuyuhiko, Himiko thinks his name is, says. “That’s just fuckin’ stupid.”

It did sound sorta stupid at first glance, but the thought of…  _ choosing _ forty people to die was just incredibly unappealing to Himiko. Mahiru was right to question that: By what standards would they choose who dies? Age? Occupation? Whether or not they have a family? This doesn’t feel like a feat that should be handled by Makoto. Handled by Danganronpa, considering that was who Makoto worked for. By what standards were they measuring the value of human lives?

Makoto knows his speech isn’t getting through to Mahiru or Fuyuhiko. They want the truth. They all do. But somehow, Makoto manages to sugarcoat it, anyways. “...We will get down to it if--  _ If  _ it happens. That is the worst case scenario. But for now, we need to aim high.”

“Do you… want us to look for people?” An Ultimate Astrologist asks with a tremor in her voice. She sits politely next to Rantaro, looking about a year older than Himiko. Season 52, probably.

“Well, don’t be…  _ viscous _ about it,” The Ultimate Hope answers. By  _ ‘vicious about it’ _ , he means,  _ ‘for the love of god, PLEASE don’t kill anybody over this’. _ “But if you know of any AHL members, or anybody suspicious, on that matter… maybe tell somebody. Yeah.” 

Tenko shifts uneasily in her chair, her shoulders slinking upwards. The members of Season 53 turn towards her with knowing glances, with backhanded stares of  _ ‘you’re lucky you’re our friend’, _ before averting their attention once more.

“What should we do in the meantime?” Rantaro questions.

“In the meantime… We keep the events going when we’re not investigating.”

With what little energy everybody has, they begin to groan in exasperation at the thought of continuing the convention. It’s not…. The  _ worst _ thing, Himiko supposes, but nobody else really seems to think the same way. The redhead still hasn’t signed up for the Talent Swap, yet, and she’ll probably have to find something soon. She’s a little worried of what might happen if an enemy discovers that she’s been skipping events. 

Her friends might find some solace in distracting activities. Kaito has been excused from cheerleading because of his rolled ankle (much to his delight), but Maki had already signed up and therefore is required to participate unless she’s incapacitated (much to her utter disdain). Shuichi and Gonta were still in that punk rock band, Tenko was in a lyrical dance, and the redhead could have sworn Kaede was joining a violin quintet. That being said, Himiko can barely remember the last conversation she had with the former pianist that wasn’t about… y’know…  _ this. _ A couple of participants had tears in their eyes just from the thought of even  _ attempting _ to go about their normal lives after this tragedy, hiding their faces behind their sleeves.

“Everybody needs to take these rules seriously,” Makoto continued as Himiko daydreamed. “And that’s-- You should…  _ know _ what happens if you don’t follow them.”

There’s not a single soul in the room that doesn’t tense at the implication, not a single person who doesn’t pale slightly or begin to shiver. It was all so horrible. So  _ unfair. _

The Ultimate Hope opens his mouth for a hot second, ready to perhaps wrap up the meeting, before he pauses. Abruptly, his head flips around. He was looking behind him at the Danganronpa officials standing in the far back of the dining hall, looking back at them as if checking to see if they were still listening to his conversation. They were not.

Makoto turns back to the group, leaning in towards the circle with zero trace of a smile left on his face. He speaks in a low whisper, so low that the rest of the group has to shift themselves forward until they’re all in some weird, tearful huddle.

“Alright, listen,” He says with sudden urgency. “If you know anybody in that AHL,  _ don’t _ tell Danganronpa, okay? Go to-- Go to a Future Foundation member, somebody else that you trust. Quite honestly, I just-- I don’t--” He flips back around again, double checking to see if the officials had turned towards him. They have not. Makoto reverts back to the group. “...I don’t think violence is the way to handle things right now, and I’m a little worried about what… they might do if any AHL member is turned over to them. Just-- Just let a Future Foundation member that you trust know, okay? I-I’m always here to talk--”

“We wrapping up, over there?” An official calls out, eyebrows stern.

Makoto jerks upwards, turning towards them with a wide grin, “Yep! Uhhhh, meeting over. Thank you… for coming. Really, I-I know it was hard.”

“Makoto, can we chat for a second? There’s a group I think you should meet,” Sayaka requests meekly. 

Makoto stares for a brief second before returning her request with a nod and a strained smile. The meeting ends and the small crowd disbands, shuffling out of the exit in almost complete silence, glancing uneasily at each other with sharp looks of distrust riddling their features. Sayaka’s group stays behind, causing many to turn around with confusion and curiosity, examining their conversation with Makoto to the best of their ability before they left the dining hall.

“It was something, at least,” Rantaro shrugs on his way out, wheeling Kirumi out the front door as the group separates for the day.

-=+=-

“Hey… can we talk for a second?”

It’s in the middle of the hallway when Himiko abruptly stops. There was something she needed to understand, something she had to uncover before she went to explore the hotel. Before she went to find another hidden talent she could pull out of her pant’s pocket before the Talent Swap. Or maybe she’ll find Korekiyo, or something. The latter seemed like the more reasonable option, but she had a feeling that the former anthropologist would prefer to be alone right now.

It seems as if Tenko knew what Himiko was about to ask her. It’s almost as if she had been preparing for this conversation for the past hour. 

“O-Okay, um…” The former aikido master nervously fiddles with her hands, gaze wavering to anywhere but Himiko’s eyes. Despite knowing the answer, she still asks, “...What about?”

“I think you know,” Himiko replies. The edges of her lips curl upwards in a playful manner.

“... Is it the outfit? Be honest,” Tenko mumbles coyly back, twirling in her polka dotted pajamas, her shoulders riding up to her ears in guilt. 

“That’s a part of it,” The redhead smirks sarcastically. “But… I think the basement thing is a little more questionable. Miu kinda caught you with your pants down back there…”

Tenko’s shoulders drop almost instantly, “Yeah… I-I know it looks bad, and I’m gonna explain to everybody else as soon as I can, I swear--!”

“You’re not in trouble, or anything. I just want to clear things up before the day starts, y’know…? I think it’d be best if we were… honest with each other.”

It stung to say that last bit, considering how she was about to run off and find Korekiyo after this conversation. Guilt pangs through her stomach, as well as a sharp stab of pain from the bruise on her back.

Tenko nods firmly, “I understand. It looks real fishy, I know-- I just… I wasn’t doing anything bad, I swear!” Her eyes shift to the side for a moment. “...I think.”

Himiko raises an eyebrow, “You think?”

“W-Well--! I just don’t know if… Um…” 

Tenko interrupts herself to look around, her eyes wide and vigilant as she waits for a couple of tense participants to walk past. She’s the first to bring Himiko’s attention towards the circular surveillance camera that was watching them, an ominous red light indicating that it was on. Paying attention with invasive detail. There was something so unsettling about that camera, the horrid feeling of being watched adding to the horrific situation Himiko found herself in, currently. 

Tenko returns Himiko’s gaze, suddenly much more serious. Her lips were pressed into a straight line, her eyebrows furrowed and shadowing her earthy irises.

“I’m scared people are listening,” She whispers. “I don’t really want… them to know that I am…  _ telling you.” _

“Them? What are you doing for  _ them?”  _ Himiko asks, her own voice now much lower.

“Uh, okay… how do I say this without sounding like I joined the mafia…” Tenko mutters, tapping her two index fingers together in thought. “I’m just doing… tasks? I-I don’t know, somebody approached me really early on and said I needed to do something for her--  _ them-- _ and then they told me that they were in the AHL and that they’d hurt people if I didn’t and I didn’t believe them at first but then everything started to happen so I ran to the basement because they asked for something called a  _ Masterkey  _ but I couldn’t find it so--”

_ They were in the AHL? _ Maki must have been right, all that time ago, when she stated that the AHL would be in the building. Of course, with Makoto specifically  _ asking _ for them, it seemed rather obvious that at least  _ some  _ of them would attend the convention. But Himiko had never thought they’d be this… horrible. She had looked up to them, at one time. She had thought they were the salvation for the broken Danganronpa participants, had been led to believe that they wanted to  _ help _ people like her. But now they’re threatening her girlfriend? And quite possible hosting  _ another _ killing game, now with a thousand people, rehashing the very thing they had sworn against so profusely? 

“...Tenko, did you  _ join _ a  _ crime gang?” _ Himiko whispers, shaking her head in disappointment. “After I specifically told you  _ not to?” _

“No! No, I really didn’t!! I-It was just that one thing, I swear! A-And I kept having to explain why I couldn’t find what they were looking for, that’s all--!”

“Who was it?” The redhead interrogates. “I may not have any of my curses, but I can still give them a good kick in the shin.”

“I--” Tenko releases a massive breath, her eyes glassy and her teeth gritted. “I can’t tell you. It’s not that I don’t trust you, I trust you more than absolutely anyone, you have to understand! I just--”

“Is anybody else in our class doing this?” Himiko was thinking of Miu, primarily, who had also snuck into the basement that day.

“Uuhhh, not that I’m aware of? But I don’t think they’d be able to say much about it, anyways…”

An abrupt realization hits Himiko in the stomach, darkening her facial expression, “Why, are you being threatened?”

Tenko’s mouth hangs open, a long vowel escaping her mouth and she desperately attempts to wiggle her way out of answering. Her hands gesture and expand, painting an invisible image, moving as if she was telling some vivid story without actually speaking any words into existence. Himiko tilts her head to the side, squinting her eyes as if a clearer view of this game of charades would in any way assist in uncovering just what Tenko was trying to convey. Eventually, the brunette, very slowly points at the redhead herself, her lower lip already beginning to wobble.

Himiko spends another few seconds with her head tilted, as if her skull was too heavy to move it back to its regular position. As the realization dawns, her neck reverts to its original position.

_ “I’m _ being threatened?” She says. It’s hardly a question when she knows it’s correct.

Tenko once again begins to speak, but her brain doesn’t catch up with her mouth and for a second she’s just opening and closing her lips, “I-- Um-- You’re not in any danger, I promise!! That’s what I’m doing this for: so that you’re safe!!” The redhead purses her lips, and the taller girl very clearly notices. In response, Tenko pulls the most phony smile Himiko has ever seen. “Everything is okay, I swear!!”

“We are in  _ Day Two _ of this convention and  _ nothing is okay,” _ Himiko corrects.

There’s something about that phrase that strikes the brunette directly in the gut. The taller girl’s facial expression twitches, before crumbling entirely.

“I _ knooooooowww!!”  _ Tenko wails, her emotions flipped on like a lightswitch. She hides her face in the crook of her elbow, shaking her head vigorously and flapping her other arm around frantically. “I don't know how this  _ happened _ and I never meant to make you feel unsafe, I  _ swear! _ Everything is just going to-- I don’t know anything that’s happening, I should have  _ never _ taken you here, I’m  _ so sorry, I’m so sorry--” _

“No, no, no, don’t cry! Oh, god, Tenko-- Don’t cry, please!”

Himiko grabs at the brunette’s hands, attempting to fan away this absolute flood of tears that has just arrived. Tenko just can’t help but cry again, her words gargled and choked with snotty sobs, her shoulders jolting up and down as she attempts to shield herself from anybody that might just walk on in her bawling her eyes out in fear and shame. 

The redhead was never good at this. Tenko is an expert at recognizing when people are feeling bad, is an expert at empathy and knowing how to provide solace, but Himiko was, in lack of a better term,  _ not.  _ All she could do was reach in for a hug and hope that it calms her down even slightly. It hurts when Tenko hugs her back. She sharply inhales through her teeth and the brunette very quickly loosens her grip.

There was something about sobbing in the middle of a hotel hallway that felt so surreal. Himiko could say she was getting better at the whole “expressing her emotions” jazz, but all of her crying fits were usually the result of emotional distress over a long period of time.  _ This  _ was something to cry over, right? The horror of this situation? The emotional turmoil of one of the people she cares for the most? It’s going to happen eventually; She’s going to burst into tears randomly with no way to stop herself. It’s going to be embarrassing, and somehow she  _ knows  _ it’s going to be in a public place. But to be entirely fair, she wouldn’t be the first. Many participants were already giving up entirely, sulking into their hands and weeping in full view of everybody else. They had already participated in a killing game, with many of them having participated in more than one, they didn’t want to do it  _ again.  _ It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to any of them to make them do this  _ again. _

So of course people were going to cry. And get angry and get  _ smarter.  _ And of course people were going to manipulate and take advantage of the weaker seasons, of people like Tenko who had friends and a significant other she was bound to protect, of people like  _ Himiko _ who were tiny and helpless and looked like they haven’t experienced a growth spurt since the third grade. In fact, the only growth the redhead has experienced in the past few years was the height difference between her simulator self and her real self: It was inconsiderable, at best, but she still considered it a win.

“We’re gonna take this one step at a time. Keep moving forward. Remember that?” Himiko says, holding Tenko’s arms and keeping her still as the brunette convulses with sobs. “I-It’ll be fine, we just have to--”

“I shouldn’t have  _ lied.  _ I shouldn’t have--” Tenko sniffs, wiping at her face and frantically attempting to compose herself. “Urgh, this is silly-- I didn’t w-want to lie to you, I just wanted you to be-- to be safe… You were already so worried when I disappeared and I didn’t want you to worry about me, and I didn’t want her to find out I told you anything and I’m  _ so sorry, really--” _

“Tenko, it’s not like I’m mad at you…”

It’s not like she  _ can  _ be mad at her. Wasn’t Himiko also sneaking around? It wasn’t as  _ wrong _ as what Tenko was doing _ , _ necessarily, and it wasn’t as dangerous. She thinks. Hopefully. Again, Korekiyo truly is a wild card, here. It made a part of her feel a little icky to say he was a  _ dangerous person, _ a part of her that resided somewhere deep within her gut and held backwards empathy.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all…” Himiko mutters, her voice muffled by Tenko’s torso as she embraces the brunette. “This isn’t a situation where… where I’m  _ not _ going to worry about you--”

“I know. I know. I-I’m worried about you, too,” She replies. The tremor in her voice is fading, implying that her sobs were beginning to subside. “And I’m done now, I promise. But if it happens again, I’ll  _ warn _ you, yeah?”

Silence. People pass by, lowering their voices as they slip past the pair out of what could presumably be out of respect. It was nice there. They were surrounded by people, but all Himiko focused on was her girlfriend’s heartbeats until the rest of the hotel faded away into quiet bliss. The world stops, and for a moment it was just them. Not a thousand people, with the dreaded subtraction of sixty. Just them.

“...Who is it?” Himiko asks after a beat.

“I really can’t tell you,” Tenko replies, her tone weaved with watery and self-degrading chuckles.

“Worth a shot. Guess I’ll have to figure it out myself,” The redhead pulls away from the hug, flashing Tenko a comforting smile as she keeps her hands on her arms. “I’m getting pretty good at this detective-ing thing.”

“Oh, I believe that wholeheartedly! You are very smart!!” Tenko beams.

Himiko smiles bashfully, bowing with awkward grace, “Thank you. Thank you, very much.”

They stand there for a moment, swinging each other’s arms and waiting for Tenko’s tears to completely dry before they leave the hallway. It wasn’t a tense silence, per say, more like a pensive one. It’s obvious both of them were thinking, plainly obvious that both of them were dreading the upcoming days as the timer ticked down.

Without permission, Himiko lunges back into a hug.

“I love you, okay?” She says. “And I trust you more than anything. So you can’t-- Don’t get yourself hurt.”

She’s met with quiet. Himiko can feel Tenko’s grip tighten around her, as if the brunette was terrified of letting the smaller girl go. The redhead acknowledges the pain that spikes from her bruising, but does not grimace. 

“I love you, too. And I’m not going to get myself hurt,” The former aikido master hums. “You have to promise, too!! This needs to be a mutual promise of not getting hurt!!”

Himiko  _ hoped _ she didn’t get hurt, but she wasn’t sure if she could promise it. It seemed a little unrealistic, a little naive. She wasn’t sure if  _ anybody _ could really promise their safety in this hell of a convention. But if a promise would make Tenko feel better, then sure. The redhead would promise. She’d promise till death do them part. 

Himiko chuckles, “I promise.”

-=+=-

There was another tiny interaction that happened just before Himiko leaves to explore for the day, just before Miu reaches the elevator to escape off to her room.

It was virtually impossible for the two characters not to notice each other. Himiko had strolled down the hallway with none other than a teary-eyed Tenko Chabashira in tow, the latter bouncing on her toes as she always does while Himiko shuffled groggily in front, the prime example of two opposite ends of the energy spectrum. The former mage looked unsure, but rightly determined. There was an aura about her that implied righteousness, a hope towards uncovering this hotel’s secrets. Hope for an escape.

Miu marches into view with the Ultimate Gymnast, a noticeably toned woman with a fiery perseverance in her eyes. The former inventor didn’t look all too happy; in fact, she seemed rather tired looking, her eyelids half closed in a squint and her lips curled downwards in a stern frown. But she doesn’t look scared. She’s been entirely frazzled basically the entirety of the past two days, but now she seems much more confident. Much more powerful. There was something about her that exuded conviction, that made her appear much more sure of herself. Like she felt safe. Like she had sudden strength. The feeling almost came across as unsound, as crooked. 

Himiko raises her arm in a tense, half-hearted wave, expecting the strawberry blonde to stop and converse with her. Tenko, who was still undeniably angry at the former inventor for shoving the redhead into a bed frame and subsequently hurting her, badly, scrunches her face inwards and averts her gaze.

“Hey, Miu, I kinda wanted to, uh…” Himiko starts her voice firm yet still quiet with hesitance. “Apologize for… startling you like--” 

No reply. Miu spares a single, blank stare at the former mage before marching past, seemingly increasing in speed. Akane had actually stopped at first, realizing that Miu was being talked to, but then followed the former inventor with a confused look on her face.

“Hey! Himiko is trying to talk to you!!” Tenko declares loudly, flipping the redhead around and gently moving her forward. 

Himiko releases a noise from the back of her throat, a wordless vocal gesture of  _ ‘i don’t really want to…’ _ , but stifles it enough that it’s not entirely rude. In perfect honesty, she was  _ going  _ to apologize for spooking the strawberry blonde, but only if  _ she _ apologized for attacking her. Or maybe Miu shouldn’t have to apologize, considering how she sorta stressed out? Everybody makes mistakes when they’re stressed out. But… even then… it  _ did _ hurt Himiko, a lot, so shouldn’t she hold  _ some _ accountability? Just because you were stressed doesn’t mean you don’t have to apologize for hurting people, right?

Miu flips herself around, planting her feet in the ground.

“What?” She practically snarls.

Himiko blinks, her face flushing with sudden embarrassment and vexation, “I just… wanted to say…” The words suddenly felt a lot less genuine, sitting on her tongue uncomfortably. “Sorry. For scaring you like that.”

Miu hums behind her teeth in response. The gap in between their apologies is so wide that even Akane was beginning to grow uncomfortable.

“Sorry,” The former inventor says, words sharp and just as forced as Himiko’s had been. “...I-I didn’t mean to shove you, but in my defense: I could flick you with my finger and send you to fuckin’ Saudi Arabia.”

While hyperbolized, it was true that Himiko  _ was _ very small. If it had been, say,  _ Rantaro _ who snuck up on Miu like the redhead had, he probably would have only stumbled slightly at her shove. Doesn’t change much.

“Kaede’s looking for you,” Himiko says.

Miu’s face contorts, “Let Bakamatsu  _ try. _ I’m busy.”

“B-But she’s  _ really _ worried, can’t you at least--”

“I said I’m  _ busy, _ donkey-lips!” The former inventor repeats. 

Miu turns on her heel, determined to reach a specific location that was nowhere  _ near _ Tenko or Himiko. There’s something frantic in her pace, as if she was intentionally backing away from the conversation before it went further, before she had to elaborate further, before she could explain or apologize to anybody or get herself into  _ another _ argument. Miu knew better now, knew that hanging out with her class would only create chaos. 

She knew better than to associate herself with people that do nothing but bring out the absolute worst in her.

Himiko stares after her, her face hardened and a sharp pang of pain once again stabbing at her back. She doesn’t reckon that this feeling is anger, this time around. It was more exhaustion, if anything, exhaustion from arguing with the strawberry blonde. The same strawberry blonde who very obviously didn’t want to cooperate with her classmates. The same strawberry blonde who was very clearly attempting to distance herself, now.

“You’re not very nice,” Himiko says. It sounded almost informative, not so much a viscous insult but rather just a simple statement. She gestures at Akane, who watched with amusement from afar. “And I’m sorry to say that in front of your new friend, but… You’re not being very nice.”

Miu bites the inside of her cheek. There’s something in her stomach that knots at the statement, a pang of regret that sits heavily on her chest, “D-Do you think I fucking care!? I-I-I-It’s not like you’d  _ give a shit _ either way!!”

The pair stared at each other, in the middle of that random hallway. Neither of them appeared too outwardly malicious, neither of them necessarily  _ looked _ angry or appeared vengeful. Both had their own suspicions and grudges against the other. Himiko was scrappy and could disappear on command, was associated with people that Miu  _ knew _ were being sneaky and suspicious. Miu was loud, untrusting and untrustworthy in response, so much so that Himiko could barely stand to give her a chance to explain what she had been up to this past day.

They both acknowledged that the other had a very different view of how things were going to work out in this convention. They saw each other, realized that they were bound to oppose each other, and started to nod.

“I’m onto you, midget,” Miu says, eyes squinted and she begins to walk backwards.

Himiko starts her own walk backwards, eye contact never wavering, “Maybe I’m onto you, too.”

Miu’s lips purse, her arms recoiling as she continues to back out of the hallway, Akane trailing behind with a look of smiley disbelief at the argument, “D-Don’t be so fucking creepy!"

“Maybe…  _ you _ shouldn’t be so-- so effing creepy!” Himiko snips childishly back.

Tenko pats her supportively on the back, “Yeah, good one, Himiko!”

“Oh, f-fuck off!” Miu calls, already around the corner.

Himiko’s face scrunches. Both of them disband with petty huffs, turning away with cocky head turns and their partner following behind.  _ Whatever _ , they both decide simultaneously, their expressions twisting until they are both clearly irate by the situation at hand. At least they have  _ something _ to divert their anger onto, but usually it's not a good sign when it's another person. Usually it’s  _ not _ the smartest thing, making an enemy in such a tense environment.

Eh. Himiko can think about that later. For now, she knows a former pianist that would be mighty pissed about Miu running away again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 39/40
> 
> EVENTUALLY these kids have to get along, right? like damn :/


	22. this time, i will be stronger! this time, i'll last longer!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the enforcement team talks with makoto

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw suicide mention
> 
> if you would rather skip it, stop reading on the line, "The concept of progress seemed so enticing." and resume reading on the line, "Mondo stared outwards."
> 
> stay safe, i hope you enjoy the chapter!! :D <3

“What’s that?” Akane asks, pointing her finger so closely to the screen that it tapped against the glass.

Miu’s eyebrows furrow, adjusting the computer on her lap, “I dunno. Probably a firewall, or some shit.”

“How ‘bout that, what’s that?” The gymnast repeats, this time moving her finger towards the downloaded USB file that sat on the former inventor’s desktop glumly.

Miu doesn’t respond this time, her attention caught on the slowly-moving download bar as the files upload to her laptop. She’s sitting in between an aisle of theatre chairs, sandwiched in between an overly confused Akane and a politely curious Sayaka. The former inventor had found herself rushing into her hotel room to grab furiously at her laptop, before slinking around the hallways and rushing straight back to the theatre-in-the-round, scared of Kaede finding her and giving her yet another talk about emotional management. There was something about the Iris Ballroom that was so enticing to the strawberry blonde, something that made her feel much safer and at ease. Like she had protection. 

That, and Sayaka wouldn’t stop humming the night away. It was like fucking hypnotism. Miu knows damn well what her simulator self sounded like: perfect and always on pitch, like her own vocal cords came with its built in autotune. It’s clear she didn’t hold the  _ exact _ same talent that she had in the killing game,  _ nobody _ in this building did, but it was still lovely to hear. She could still very well be successful if she actively pursued it as a career, but considering how she’s with Danganronpa now, it seems unlikely.

“And that?” Akane asks. 

She shifts onto her knees, leaning closer to read what should have been fairly legible text. Her finger lands on a folder far to the right of Miu’s laptop labelled  _ “Cyprus_Startup.zip” _ , one that Miu should have hidden. It’s the files she had stolen from the basement all that time ago. The strawberry blonde freezes, her stolen documents clearly having been found out, her mind racing for a quick excuse as to what the file could plausibly be.

“Porn,” She says quickly. 

The two girls next to her blink. Obviously the excuse wasn’t incredibly believable, but it was stupid enough to make them want to divert the conversation, anyways.

Sayaka pushes herself off of the ground, making her way towards the stage, “What are you thinking, Makoto?”

The Ultimate Hope, who had been escorted into the Iris Ballroom probably twenty minutes ago and has been standing and listening to Mondo’s pitch ever since, turns towards the pop sensation with his mouth hanging open. The iron locker had been presented to him solemnly, the Ultimate Swordswoman standing stiffly in front of it, revealing the entirety of its contents to the less-than-happy Makoto. The Ultimate Hope, in response, looked as if his entire brain had evaporated out of his skull. He was staring blankly, blinking slowly, as in slow motion.

His head finally begins to shake left and right, his face still frozen in concern and disbelief, “...No. No, this isn’t good.”

“Makoto, I’ve already told you, we need  _ some  _ sort of protection,” Mondo says with his eyes closed and his words sharp, as if he had already repeated this spiel hundreds of times already to a disoriented child.

“Who do you have? Who do you have so far?” Makoto asks.

“Well, shit, uh-- Me, Sayaka, Peko, Fuyuhiko, Akane, Kazuichi’s doin’ the technical work, and a few others. Lot of ‘em with fighting type talents. We’re gonna get more people once this whole thing group gets started. Oh, and, uh...” He pauses, his teeth grinding together as he turns towards the seats, his eyes trailing begrudgingly over to the former inventor. His pace grows increasingly quicker as he rushes through the next phrase. “And Miu Iruma, which wasn’t  _ my _ goddamn idea--”

“Ey! Say that to my fuckin’ face, cob-head!!” Miu spits, pushing herself up so her head peeks out from behind the row of chairs. “You  _ wish _ it was your goddamn idea--!”

“Kid, I am  _ this close _ to--”

“Kiss my ass, shrimp-dick--!!!”

“--You are  _ so lucky I am not allowed to curse at you--” _

“See, this is proving my point! This-- I can not see how giving people weapons would end up being a good idea,” Makoto interjects. “Everybody is angry, and allowing them weapons to harm others will just--”

“People are going to find weapons no matter what we do,” Peko states, pushing her glasses up her nose calmly. Her phone is gripped in her hands, and she barely looks up from it. “This weapon’s locker is now completely unlocked, the kitchen has multiple knives and flammable devices, there are many objects provided in hotel rooms that can be used as blunt instruments, Kazuichi was able to acquire a blowtorch simply by walking into a supply closet, the pool itself is a drowning hazard, anybody could walk off the roof--”

“Yes, yes, I-I-I know this,” Makoto replies, waving away the suggestion frantically with his hands as if flapping away mosquitoes. 

“Then it only makes sense if you give the _right_ _people_ the weaponry before any of that crap happens,” Mondo continues, eyebrows furrowed. “Don’t be stupid about this, man. You know this is the right idea.”

“I don’t….” Makoto sighs, his eyes closing in what could only be exasperation. “I don’t know anything. Everything is just so-- I don’t know anything.”

“Makoto, he’s right…” Sayaka hums, almost sorrowfully. “I know you believe in these people, but it’s still…  _ Danganronpa _ … We might have grown older, but some of us still  _ have _ those personalities.  _ Everybody _ still has those false memories,” Her glance over at Miu does not go unnoticed. “And some of us have only just left the simulator, you know?”

“No, I think I do. I do know,” The Ultimate Hope replies. “A-And I see where you’re coming from, I really do, but I just can’t… see this going well--”

“Then what else are we supposed to do?” The pop sensation insists, her voice now much more firm. “...I’m starting to think you just don’t trust us with this.”

Makoto very noticeably hesitates, and it answers the question quite rapidly. Surely he didn’t mean to pause that tellingly, but the fleeting moment where his mouth opens and nothing emerges tells the room of mostly blackened participants just how far his trust extended. Which, Miu supposes, was pretty reasonable, in one way or another. 

She was sure the conversation they had yesterday about how he had “grown close with his classmates” still held true in certain circumstances, but he surely couldn’t have expected this one. Surely he wasn’t referring to trusting them in a life-or-death situation such as this, right? And it wasn’t as if Makoto was standing next to a group of the most rational people, either. Two people, three counting Fuyuhiko, have attempted a murder in their respective killing game, and and two of them have actually gone through with it. And this was only the  _ first _ killing game they’ve been in, not counting any other games they might have made appearances in down the line. Kazuichi had apparently survived all of his games, but for all Miu knew Akane and Fuyuhiko could have been blackened, as well.

If Miu were to take a step back and look at things…. This wasn’t really the  _ best _ group of people to start a militia, right? I mean, Mondo was probably a solid choice, considering his fake talent, but Miu would rather die than say that out loud, so.

“I do,” Makoto continues, after an incredibly long pause already gave away that he kinda didn’t. “I do. It’s not that. I just…. Don’t think giving  _ anybody _ weapons is a good idea.” He notices Mondo opening his mouth to retort, and very quickly speaks over him. “I know the other places are still open, I know-- But we can protect  _ this _ weapons locker without handing anybody firearms.”

Mondo teeth were grinding into each other, “Handin’ the  _ right people _ firearms is the  _ safest--” _

“Mondo, I don’t know right now. I  _ really _ don’t have an answer for you,” Makoto interrupts. “Just-- Just--”

“Well we  _ need _ one right now! Jesus! You’re the one in charge, apparently, so  _ act like it, _ man!”

Makoto sighs, lips thinning immensely. Miu scrunches in on herself, intentionally raises her knees so her laptop covers her second-hand-embarrassment. 

Peko finally lifts her head from her phone, her lips curling downwards into a solemn frown, “I have an announcement.”

“Great. Make the announcement,” The Ultimate Hope says sharply, gesturing towards the rest of the group as he begins his way towards the exit. “I have to talk to other people--”

“Are you fuckin’ serious right now?” Mondo demands. 

Sayaka folds her arms, now greeting the pair on the stage as the rest of the unofficial enforcement team watches with prying eyes. Akane has moved into a seat in the row next to Miu, leaning forward in her chair with anticipation. Fuyuhiko and Souda watch from near the iron locker. An assortment of other killing game participants, their faces hardened with ire and their noses scrunched in disdain, assemble on the other side of the room: a more than critical audience to Makoto’s floundering performance.

Peko is still staring directly at her phone. She has something to say, something important, but it seems as if she was withholding.

_ “Yes. _ Yes, I just--” Makoto exhales very loudly, dragging his hands down his face as he halts underneath the exit. He stands there for a moment, his eyes closed and averted from the sea of disappointment and flustered anger that stared ruthlessly at him, his hands resting over his mouth like an exhausted father. “Let me think about this. Let me think about this, okay? I’m gonna leave, talk to some other people… and think about this.”

“You can’t just keep  _ running away _ from your problems, man! This is the  _ right _ call and you know that, so stop being such a fuckin’--” Before Mondo can finish, Sayaka throws him a sideways glare. The Ultimate Biker Gang Leader, clearly mad beyond words, purses his lips, glances at Miu, and corrects himself. “...A  _ frick-frackin’ _ coward!!”

“Just say fuck,” Miu all but begs, shaking her head. “Please just say fuck.”

“Makoto, you’re making a mistake,” Sayaka remarks, tone low. Her eyes were wide, her expression almost haunted-looking. As if she was frightened for what’s to come. “We need protection.”

The boy in response does not answer, glancing between Mondo and Sayaka with a rather neutral expression. He analyzes the unofficial enforcement team, mentally counting and examining each member, inspecting their reliability and calculating just how horrible this entire ideal would be. He looked like his brain was clogged, like it was entirely overloaded with information and things he had to do. Problems he had to solve. People he had to comfort when there was nobody listening to his own problems. 

“I’ll be back with an answer. If you need me for anything…” Makoto says, surprisingly calm despite being yelled at profusely. He pauses right before leaving down the hallway, mouth hanging open for a few seconds before he adds a heavy, “…Please reconsider.”

The Ultimate Hope slinks away, his eyes drooping with unbearable stress and his entire posture sunken and lowered. It looked as if his center of gravity was ten inches lower than normal as he hunched over, the weight of the world on his shoulders. Miu watches with squinted eyes as he leaves, her computer still resting on her lap and beginning to overheat, the USB still plugged into the side.

“You’re gonna  _ regret it _ once people start killin’ each other!” Mondo barks out the door, before turning back around to the theatre with an aggravated,  _ “Shit!” _

“It makes sense for him not to trust us, Mondo,” Sayaka reasons, her voice seeping with disappointment. “It makes sense.”

A beat of guilty silence. Miu can feel her stomach knot, but not in the normal way. It wasn’t an icy feeling of isolated remorse, but rather a group sentiment of guilt, a collective expression of discomfort over an unchangeable past. Some backwards form of solidarity over irrationality. 

“I  _ know,  _ I know. But…” Mondo crosses his arms, mouth curled into an unpleasant snarl. “Shit.”

“None of this makes any goddamn sense,” Akane hisses under her breath, shaking her head. “This… This was the  _ right _ thing to do,  _ right?” _

“You should have pushed harder,” Fuyuhiko criticizes. 

“I tried my best, okay!?” Mondo retorts bitterly, “You try bein’ the fuckin’ spokesperson next time, Mr.  _ Yakuza--” _

Before Fuyuhiko could open his mouth to growl back, and before Peko could defensively stand in front of the ex-yakuza, Sayaka quickly intervenes with a comforting smile and a gesture of peace, “Guys, he’s obviously a little stressed out. Let him clear his mind, then we can try again, okay?”

Miu’s laptop dings. The download has completed, and K1-B0’s upgrades were available to be attached to the former robot’s programming. For the briefest of moments, her chest swells with childish excitement. The concept of progress seemed so enticing.

_ “We’re _ stressed too! Hell, everybody is!” Mondo continues ranting, even after Miu has begun to drown the conversation out. She types rapidly at her keyboard, leaning forward with the spark of a newfound buoyant energy. “We might have some time, but we gotta get this enforcement started  _ now _ before people start taking those forty lives into their own hands--”

“Thirty nine,” Peko corrects, eyes lowered to her screen.

Mondo stops abruptly, eyebrows furrowed, “What?  _ Forty.” _

“Peko, you said you had an announcement?” Fuyuhiko asks.

“Yes, and that was it. There are thirty-nine left,” The Ultimate Swordswoman responds, her voice firm and body posture rigid. She turns her phone’s screen outwards, revealing a text conversation she’s been having with a frantic, all-caps recipient. “Someone walked off the roof.”

Miu almost doesn’t hear it the first time. The phrase enters one ear and slips directly out the other, passing carefully past her brain before it could process just what was said, just what was  _ implied.  _ It reaches her body faster than it does her brain, and she finds herself freezing in place, her head looking upwards before lowering and raising again, almost as if double-checking. Her mind goes completely blank, as if reloading, before it hits her.

It should have had a larger impact. Probably. Maybe. There was something so chilling about the idea that she wouldn’t dare to get into, something so harrowing and familiar about the subject. To even think that a situation such as this was  _ that _ hopeless to somebody, so despairful and desolate of remedy and that somebody would rather walk directly off of a roof than move forward. Miu had barely thought about a situation without  _ any _ hope, a situation so impossible to overcome that it sends people to the absolute extremes. Miu had been so preoccupied with the one end of the spectrum, so obsessed with thinking about the people who will hurt others in their desperate attempts to escape, that she barely thought of the opposite side. The people who would hurt themselves.

These are participants with unimaginable trauma, people with horrid memories and deep regrets that will never leave them. It all crashes down on her, rushing down her spine like ice water, paling her skin and freezing her in place. Her body involuntarily scrunches in on herself, almost protectively, her laptop crushed in between her chest and her legs. The heat emitted from the bottom of her computer is the only thing keeping her warm. 

It’s as if the silence was adding to this sudden chill. The air felt as if it was suddenly sucked out of the room. Nobody was moving besides Akane, who moved her elbows on her knees and her hands over her mouth, sitting in deep thought. 

Mondo stares outwards. It’s not at a particular person, not directed at any specific participant, but his eyes still stared out with purpose, as if he had somebody in mind. His facial expression morphs from what is originally slight shock, to a hollow vacancy, and finally to a determined anger. A fiery sense of justice seems to spark behind his eyes.

“We’re doing it without him,” He decides formally, still not making eye contact.

Sayaka blinks, broken out of the trance, “...What?”

“You heard me. We’re starting the team without Makoto,” Mondo repeats. “He’s not our leader.”

_ He’s not our leader. _ It almost reminds Miu, in a way. When did anybody formally decide that it would be Makoto who ran things? She doesn’t remember holding a vote. She doesn’t remember there being any sort of democratic election during this convention that declared Makoto the ruler. He wasn’t their leader.

He was only  _ pretending _ to be.

The room comes alive at the suggestion, with participants standing up in a fit of newfound perseverance. Anger ripples through the room, a furious demand for justice and progress. A ferocious new passion for things to move forward. This time, with or without Makoto.

“Peko, Fuyuhiko, Akane, get people. Anybody strong. Look for fighting talents,” Mondo orders with a sudden authority in his voice, now much more formal and serious. “Any of you know how to shoot a gun?”

“I’m no expert, but I know enough,” Fuyuhiko replies soberly, as he begins to make his way down the aisle with Akane.

“Good, then you’re teachin’ people as soon as we’ve got more participants recruited. Same goes for anybody you find with skill in firearms. Peko, I’m sure you can train some folks in close-range,” At his demands, the Ultimate Swordswoman nods acutely, taking the sudden authority as permission to walk back to the iron locker and quickly stash a hunting knife. Mondo turns to the Ultimate Mechanic. “Kaz, you’re still on lock duty. I want that weapons cabinet lockable at the end of the hour, got it?”

“U-Uh, got it!” Kazuichi stutters in reply, not knowing how to respond and quickly throwing his hand up to his forehead in salute.

“Miu--”

The pair make eye contact, however unwillingly. Miu was still hunched in on herself, her eyes wide with this sudden change in pace and her laptop practically covering half of her face. Mondo resumes his steely facial expression for a few moments before it softens slightly.

“You’re still working on the keys, right? To unlock the doors?” He asks gently.

Miu blinks twice before rattling any dark thoughts out of her head violently, flipping herself straight back into work mode. But not, first, without a quick jab of, “Oh, so  _ now _ you need me--”

“Keys?  _ Are you working on them?” _

“Eee-- Y-Yes, damn!!!!” The former inventor corrects, twirling nervously at her hair.

“Good. Sayaka, supervise.”

The Ultimate Pop Sensation, looking slightly more rattled for wear, huffs slightly. Mondo sighs through his nose.

_ “Please,” _ He adds, unable to contain the forcefulness that arrives with it. Sayaka rolls her eyes, her hands cupped anxiously over her chest as she gulps in what could only be newfound pressure. Mondo turns back towards the crowd, his voice booming with striking jurisdiction. “And if you don’t have a talent for the Talent Swap at the end of the day,  _ I am putting you in cheerleading myself, ya hear me!?” _

The new enforcement team, all of them scared to death of cheerleading, rapidly sputter in agreement and jerkingly rise up from their seats, scampering to leave the room and get themselves organized. The team gave them something to do, a goal to strive towards. The energy in the room was less tense, and more righteously determined.

“Don’t say anything to anybody yet, got it?” Mondo hollers at the people starting to exit. “This is kept secret till it isn’t.”

Somewhere in the midst of the people running towards the exit, a pair of purple eyes weeded their way through the crowd, entering instead of leaving, dragging a rather disoriented Shuichi Saihara behind her. Kaede, now clad in a simple sundress and dark blue jacket instead of her pajamas, scans over the crowd with narrowed eyes until she spots the distracted Miu. The former inventor does not notice her at first, instead distracted with the newly downloaded program on her computer. She had things to do now, work to preoccupy herself with. Miu was busy, had things to busy herself with. Had things to do, now, that didn’t involve overthinking herself directly into a hole. 

Kaede tries to grab her attention by waving from the stage, but the strawberry blonde was too spaced out. She had things to do. She had things to do, now.

“Hello! Um, I don’t think you guys are allowed to be in here,” Sayaka says politely, using her body to shield the still-open iron cabinet from Kaede and Shuichi.

Kaede raises her hands to say something, before realizing that not everybody understands her language and tapping at Shuichi’s shoulder, requesting that the former detective take over explaining as she moves sharply up the stairs. Shuichi tenses initially, before turning away to justify just what the determined former pianist was trying to do.

Kaede stops directly in front of Miu, placing her hands on her hips and waiting for the former inventor to notice. It takes Miu about a minute to realize somebody had stood in front of her. She quickly slams her laptop closed, hiding any sort of progress she might have just made, the USB still stuck in its side.

“N-Nothing!!!” She says prematurely, before Kaede can ask what she was up to. “I-I-I wasn’t doing anything!!!”

Kaede barely has anything to say to her. She just sighs. Obviously Miu’s frequent disappearances were beginning to wear her out.

The former inventor knows that the blonde feels strongly about her friends being safe, knows that she is bound to panic when people leave and they don’t explain where they’ve been. Miu does nothing but freak the former pianist out, and she knows that. And somewhere, deep down, she feels immensely horrible about being  _ that much _ of a burden. Miu acts before she thinks, reacts passionately before considering how others may feel about it. She’s freaking Kaede out, somebody she considers a friend. 

Mentioning the iron locker would only freak her out more. Mentioning the enforcement team, now operating without Makoto’s permission, would only freak her out more. Mentioning the thirty-nine people would only freak her out more.

Now that Miu thinks about the thirty-nine a little bit more, maybe she should send the class group chat a quick text. Just make sure it wasn’t anybody there.

“Kaede?” Shuichi calls, grabbing the blonde’s attention. With wide eyes and pursed lips, he gestures over at the open iron locker with his head. Sayaka turns towards it, acting as if this was the first time she’s seen it.

Without another word, Kaede immediately grabs Miu's hand, marches down the stairs, grabs Shuichi, and escorts them, personally, out of the room.

Sayaka waves Miu goodbye as she exits, sending the strawberry blonde an apologetic glance. Mondo notices her leaving and quickly averts his attention.

“Twenty minutes, Iruma!” He calls out. “We need you here!”

They need her here. They  _ need _ her here.

They need her, she needs them, and this enforcement team was going to work.

-=+=-

Miu is the first person to apologize.

Kaede had stopped down in a lounge, turning towards the former inventor with a stern expression of disappointment. Not many participants resided in the same room, and if they did, they were muttering quietly to themselves or trying to distract themselves on their laptops. One person, the Ultimate Florist, perhaps, was tapping her right foot against the ground repetitively, her eyes wide with what could only be malice. Like she was planning to do something.

Shuichi opens his mouth, maybe to explain why they were getting a little annoyed at the former inventor and her antics, but Miu had sharply cut him off.

“S-Stop yelling at me, I-I-I didn’t mean it!! I’m sorry, okay!? Damn!!” She says defensively, hands coiled towards her chest. 

_ You need to apologize to Himiko, too! _ Kaede adds.

“I-I did! I did, I swear!”

“She’s, uh, bruising pretty bad, apparently…” Shuichi mumbles, scratching at the back of his neck. “I’m assuming. Kokichi told me what happened, but his version of things were pretty… dramaticized.”

_ “Everything _ about that cumstain is dramaticized,” Miu grits under her breath, face scrunched.

_ Miu, you know what I’m about to say, _ Kaede begins with a heavy sigh,  _ If you go somewhere, you have to let-- _

“Let somebody know where I am and when I’m coming back,” Miu recites in a mocking tone, “I know, Blondie! You give me the same spiel every other fuckin’ day!”

_ And I shouldn’t have to!! _ Kaede retorts.

“Then  _ don’t!” _ Miu spits, before realizing what she said and quickly retracting her statement. “No, I didn’t-- I didn’t mean  _ don’t  _ a-as in--”

_ I know what you mean. And I know that you’re tired,  _ the blonde says slowly,  _ We all are. But I just want to make sure you’re okay. _

“I’m fine, Bakamatsu. W-Well, I am now,” She answers, her eyes shifting uncertainly to the side. “And I really didn’t mean to run off, okay? I just-- I just  _ panicked _ and ended up somewhere. I’m sorry.”

_ Oh, I didn’t… realize. I’m sorry, I should have run after you, but everybody was freaking out-- _

“No, I know. I get it.”

There’s a brief beat of silence as Miu rubs at her eyes, attempting to wake herself up to the situation at hand. God, what time was it? 10 AM? Surely she should have gotten on track by now, should have unclouded her brain and set herself to work. Work. Yes, that’s what she needs to do right now.

“How…” She starts slowly, searching for keywords to end the conversation without being incredibly bitchy. “How are you doing?”

That wasn’t the right thing to say, but Miu says it anyways. It’s unusually…  _ Nice _ for the inventor? As in, the question rolled off her tongue very genuinely, like she was actually concerned. Which isn’t to say that she  _ wasn’t _ concerned about Kaede,  _ of course she was concerned about Kaede, _ but usually her questions concerning other people’s wellbeing came off slightly backhanded or rude.

_ I’m… not entirely dysfunctional!  _ Kaede replies with a slight giggle,  _ Just trying to keep everybody together. It’s just… a little hard to be the leader when nobody can hear you. _ She pauses before once more chuckling to herself,  _ Hey! Metaphorically  _ **_and_ ** _ physically!  _

“Uh, Miu, can I ask a question about what was happening in the Iris Ballroom…?” Shuichi requests timidly.

Miu huffs, her personality swinging back into full gear, “Shut the hell up, Shercock!! Kaede and I are having some girl-on-girl action over here!!!!!” She flips back to the blonde with a more gentle expression. “S-Sorry you’re feeling that way, or something…”

Kaede shrugs,  _ Thank you. That’s very nice. But yes, Shuichi is right: What was happening back there? _

Ah, fuck. Mondo had already warned the crew not to tell anybody, considering how they were going behind Makoto’s back to accomplish this enforcement crew, so Miu immediately turning around and telling everybody just seemed counterproductive. But, still…. Kaede was already so worried… and she’s basically the only person who actively cares for her in this hotel....

“They’re starting a group, or something,” She says rather vaguely, hunching in on herself. “I’m, um… helping out? C-Cuz Chihiro gave me these dingy-ass hotel key cards, so I should be able to recode them into lock rerouters if I shove some of my own code in there...”

_ Miu! That’s so awesome!! _ Kaede says, her expression brightening with genuine delight,  _ You’re making friends! _

“W-Well, don’t say that like I’m some sort of social reject, or something--!!”

“And the locker?” Shuichi cuts in.

“I don’t know shit, stop interrogating me!!” Miu retorts. “I’m just the beauty and the brains!”

“Well, u-uh…” He glances towards the entrance, fidgeting with the ends of his sleeves. “I guess we’ll have to look into that a little more…”

_ That was Mondo Owada, right? Ultimate Biker Gang Leader? _ Kaede asks.

“Looked like it. I-I’m sure I saw Makoto in there a few moments before we went in, so surely he has something to do with it.”

Couldn’t be more incorrect. The Ultimate Hope was perhaps the last person who would agree to this team. 

_ As long as you’re safe, I’m sure this will be really cool for you, Miu! _ Kaede encourages,  _ I know you can do it! _

Yeah, maybe she could. Because she  _ was _ going to be safe, and she  _ could  _ do it. She thinks. Hopefully. She knows this team will be the right thing, she knows this team will keep her protected, but the question of whether or not “she could do it” remains unanswered. But there was so much to be done, so much to achieve. She has something to do. Something to strive for. 

There’s this newfound determination that follows her, even as Kaede and Shuichi continue the conversation on their own. It’s almost scarily familiar, how strongly this feeling of determination seeps in. She’s confident, now. Confident in progress.

This was good. Kaede was right. This was going to be good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 39/40


	23. someone is on our side, someone else is not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another meeting that ends in a discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just as a warning, i will no longer be trigger warning death in this story! it definitely spoils the chapters lmaoooo. nothing bad happens in this chapter, but please keep in mind for future chapters :)
> 
> i hope you enjoy, have a nice day!! :D

When Himiko finds Korekiyo, he’s staring at a wall.

There’s nothing too interesting about it when the redhead approaches. It’s just a wall, painted an off-white color that Himiko just couldn’t find interesting. She had turned the corner on the second floor to find Korekiyo with his back turned to her, doing nothing but stare at the wall. He’s out of his pajamas and back into his dark brown long coat, making him appear even more ominous as he turns away from the only logical way to face and stares at the paint.

Himiko stands from a distance for a few moments, waiting for him to turn around or quite frankly do anything, before she sighs and hesitantly moves forward. She reaches his side, only to notice that he wasn’t even staring at the wall. His eyes were closed almost harshly, his eyebrows furrowed in on themselves. 

Himiko was almost nervous to break him out of whatever sort of trance this was, “Ummmm……. Hello…?”

Korekiyo opens his eyes, blinking a few times at the wall in front of him before he turns towards the confused redhead. The rest of his body remains frozen, with only his neck moving.

“Hello,” He greets back, “Did I miss a Blue Team meeting?”

“Red Team,” Himiko corrects, “And… no. I was just finding you to start one. I have more things to, uh, say.”

Korekiyo takes a massive breath in, inhaling behind his mask in a manner that sucks the fabric in towards his mouth. He slowly turns back towards the off-color white of the wall, his eyes directed straight forward, a look of pensiveness rendering his expression almost unreadable.

Himiko also reverts her head towards the wall, until both of them are staring rather ominously in the wrong direction. Her face resumes her neutral expression of exhaustion, her eyes drooping and her lips involuntarily pursed, until her head begins to lean to the side in confusion.

“...What’s so interesting?” She finally asks. “It’s… a wall…”

“You don’t say,” Korekiyo returns, before he begins to look around himself, breaking his statue-like composure by examining the hallway he found himself in. His yellow eyes search, his body turning but his feet never moving. “...To be honest, I’m not too sure what I’m… I definitely had a purpose coming down here, but I must have forgotten.”

Himiko raises a skeptical eyebrow, “What was the last thing you remember?”

He sucks in air through his teeth, “Hm. Well, I certainly remember you being quite angry, and then Miu-- Oh,” He turns towards the redhead, eyes narrowed with concern. “How are you? Were you shoved?”

“Eh. It’s just bruising real bad,” Himiko replies with an almost pained shrug, lifting up the bottom of her shirt to show the part of her back that was injured. Once Korekiyo hums in sympathy, she tugs it back down. “But don’t worry about me. I’m a big girl, I can handle it.”

“It looks quite painful,” Korekiyo says, but doesn’t really mean it because he’s very clearly been in worse pain before. “I’m sorry that Miu felt she had to do that.”

Himiko shrugs, but her lips tug downwards in a way that clearly shows her bitterness towards the topic, “Nyeh, it’s whatever… How ‘bout you? You didn’t look too bright and sunny back there.”

Korekiyo returns with silence, a few blinks passing in nothing but quiet. His eyes slowly unfocus themselves from Himiko’s own, as if he was in deep thought, before he turns back towards the off-color wall.

“Better,” He answers. “Things are quiet now, which is good.”

This was about as quiet as you could get in this hotel: standing, alone, in an empty corridor, staring at perhaps the most silent and boring of colors. If Himiko were to close her mouth and mute her breathing, they would be standing in total noiselessness. For the redhead it was slightly unsettling at best, but Korekiyo seemed to find some solace in the lack of sound.

“Well... nice to hear you’re doing okay, at least,” Himiko replies with an awkward raise of her shoulders. “If you want more time, or something, I can walk around for a bit…”

The corners of his eyes crinkle in a manner that perhaps implies a tiny smile of gratitude, “No, that’s alright. I do want to ask, however: Is it alright if we walk around instead of finding a vent? I find that I am not built for tiny spaces.”

_ Nnnnggg. _ It’s not exactly if Himiko wants to risk the possibility of running into somebody like Tenko or Angie and then subsequently having to explain just what she was doing with Korekiyo. But the floor was practically empty, and the vents would do absolutely nothing for the former anthropologist right now. It just felt a little mean to say no, considering everything.

_ “I _ am,” Himiko jokes, spreading her arms in a way that shows the minimal space her body takes up. “But sure, that’s fine. We might also want to find a talent for the Talent Swap.”

“Oh, no need. While I had spare time yesterday, a man ran up to me and practically insisted that I join his sport’s team. He was so intimidating that I immediately said yes,” His eyes begin to narrow, as if reliving the moment. “The funny part about all of this is that I can’t recall which sport I signed up for.”

Himiko can’t help but chuckle slightly, her shoulders bobbing in repressed laughter, “Perfect. Shall we?”

Korekiyo replies with a curt nod, and the two begin their rather awkward journey to no particular location. 

Despite having presumably roamed through the second floor before, considering how deep into the level Korekiyo had been when Himiko found him staring at the wall, it appeared as if the former anthropologist genuinely didn’t know his way around. He was clearly trailing Himiko’s footsteps; He would turn the corner after Himiko turned in that direction, and he would slow down his pace if Himiko was struggling. His limited knowledge of the second level paired with the redhead’s fleeting directional skills made for a rather choppy walk in complete circles.

“Tenko was talking to me about this  _ Masterkey  _ thing,” Himiko starts, already beginning to widdle her way out of dragging Tenko into the suspicion. “It seemed pretty important. Know anything about it?”

“Masterkey…” Korekiyo repeats, sounding the word out loud as if it would assist in helping him to remember it. “I can’t say I’ve heard of it. What is its purpose?”

“That’s what I wanted to ask you.”

“Well, if I were to take an educated guess, I could only assume it was a universal key. As in, it unlocks every lock in the facility,” He shuffles to a stop as Himiko pauses to choose a direction when the hallway diverges, looking both ways before following after her. “It would make sense for somebody to want one, however I am unsure if anybody is in possession of one currently. How did Tenko know about this?”

“Somebody told her,” The redhead answers a little too quickly and a little too forcefully. 

Korekiyo considers her response for a brief second, eyes narrowing very slightly, before he continues, “Well, it’s comforting to know that some people are still trying to find a way out.”

Himiko reverts back to a softer tone. She doesn’t want to be too loud, “What does that mean? Did you think people were just gonna give up?”

“No. I just expected more people to… adapt, so to say. Recognize the severity of the situation and adapt accordingly,” He replies drumming his fingers against one of his coat’s pockets. It must have his notebook in it. “Well, it’s only a matter of time, I suppose.”

Surely he must not realize how incredibly ominous that phrase sounds. Like some sort of edgy prophet. 

“Right. You were talking about the philosophy behind all of this a little earlier…” Himiko recalls, nodding with her hand to her chin.

“... _ Psychology,” _ Korekiyo corrects. “And yes. In these rather… unfortunate circumstances, it only makes sense that certain ideologies will begin to form and branch off. Humanity is rather b--” He falters, second-guessing his word choice. “...Rather interesting in that way. Think  _ Lord of the Flies.” _

“...Right…” Himiko says, mistakenly thinking about  _ Lord of the Rings _ instead. “Well, what do you think we should do?”

_ “‘We’ _ , as in the collective group of participants? I think it is rather naive to assume everybody will agree on one thing,” His head tilts to the side for a slight moment. “But I don’t believe we should settle just yet. I can’t imagine that playing into this threat would do anybody any good.”

“I-I mean… it’s pretty serious…” Himiko refutes meekly. “I agree with you! It’s just… really bad, y’know? W-We’re not even  _ allowed _ in the lobby anymore…”

The text had gone out at 4:30 AM, a desperate plea not to return to the hotel’s lobby. It was the Ultimate Chef from Season 2, if Himiko remembered correctly, who took advantage of Danganronpa’s horrible group chat making skills to send the frantic message before anybody else returned to what was undoubtedly a horrid scene. Himiko hasn’t even thought about returning to that room, not even once. Surely…  _ somebody _ had to clean it up eventually… right?

“That is definitely for the best. And what were we discussing, again?” Korekiyo dismisses the subject very quickly, his pace growing more rapid as he attempts to bypass the conversation of what could possibly be left behind in that lobby. “Masterkey, correct? I haven’t heard of it and I have yet to see one. Is this something we should be concerned about?”

Himiko purses her lips in uncertainty, “Probably not. Not more than… other things. Like, um, Sakine. I don’t know why you’re so suspicious of her, but I haven’t seen her at all since yesterday…. So….” 

“Maybe you should find her.”

“Why don’t  _ you _ find her? Make some friends?”

“No, thank you. It is not  _ that _ easy.”

Himiko squints at him sarcastically, pushing herself forward to keep up with Korekiyo’s long legs. He was speeding up now, aware of his general location.

Korekiyo finally takes the notebook out of his pocket, drumming his fingers against it a few times before he opens it, as if he was checking it was a real, physical object. As he skims through the coded notes with his fingers, Himiko stops at a fork in the hallway and debates which way to turn. Both paths were filled with hotel rooms, one of which led to a dead end and a maintanence room. Himiko could only wonder if this hotel had room service. Because goodness knows she needs some hotel-quality pancakes right now.

“So, there are two things we must keep an eye out for: this alleged Masterkey and Sakine,” Korekiyo states, scribbling it into his journal.

“Also Miu. Put Miu in there,” Himiko says rather pettily. “She keeps calling me donkey-lips and it hurts my feelings.”

“Glad to see that you have been taking these events seriously.”

“I have been! You weren’t there, she was acting all weird,” The redhead notices him taking a breath, as if inhaling to speak, and quickly continues. “Before  _ and _ after what happened this morning. She was all paranoid and stuff beforehand, but then she was… weirdly confident? And then she insulted me again so I didn’t look into it all that much.”

“She is quite peculiar, Miu. A very odd case study indeed,” He’s writing notes but they seem irrelevant to whatever Himiko was talking about. “I can’t make any accurate presumptions, of course, considering how very little I know about her.”

“Oh, well, you lived with her back in the hospital, so--”

“No, I didn’t, actually.”

Oh. Right. He was secluded back there, kept in a totally different wing of the hospital for the majority. Of course he didn’t chit chat with Miu. 

In Himiko’s defense, she had also isolated herself in her room for a large majority of that hospital stay, so it wasn’t as if she would know this. In fact, she hadn’t talked with many people back then, either. She had practically curled herself into a corner and moped there, emptily, for a solid month or so. She stared in mirrors, rethinking her entire existence, watching as time rolled past her before her very eyes. Depressingly obsolete. 

“Well… Still. I think she’s up to something,” Himiko expresses.

In all honesty, it was most likely some backhanded form of retaliation that was making the redhead so suspicious of Miu. A gesture of “if you’re suspicious of me, then I’ll be suspicious of you”. And she had a bit of a right to be suspicious, considering how she hadn’t explained what  _ she _ was doing in the basement on day one. Tenko had some sort of reason, but Miu has yet to tell anybody. Or maybe she has? Maybe she’s confiding in people that weren’t Himiko, people she’s actually close to? The redhead knows Kaede is kinda close to her, the last time she recalled, which was why Himiko had gone to the blonde to explain where Miu was. 

Well, the point still stands, regardless. Himiko thought Miu was up to something. Good or bad, she wasn’t sure.

She must have spaced out just a little, because the only part of Korekiyo’s next sentence that she catches is, “...Was Tenko doing?”

“Hmm?” The redhead hums.

“Oh, don’t mind me, I was only curious to know what Tenko was doing in the basement. I recall Miu talking about it--”

“Nothing!” The redhead replies quite forcefully. She blinks at her raised volume. “Whoops. Sorry for being loud.”

Korekiyo narrows his eyebrows in slight confusion, “It doesn’t bother me.”

Himiko raises an eyebrow, “Oh? I thought you--”

“I wasn’t referring to you,” He answers without question, noticing how Himiko’s nose was twitching in thought.

Every time Himiko thinks she knows something about this boy, he flips the assumption on its head. So  _ nevermind, _ she supposes. Forget about being quiet, because apparently that had nothing to do with it??? People are confusing and Himiko doesn’t like that. 

Himiko eyes brighten with sudden realization, her mouth taking a long ‘O’ shape before she leans in, whispering in a manner not unlike a child gossiping at a sleepover, “Was it  _ her?” _

She doesn’t have to explain who “her” is for Korekiyo to immediately pick up what she was curious about. The taller boy stops in his tracks, still maintaining rather tired eye contact, the top half of his face unmoving. He doesn’t seem irritated by the question. In fact he pauses, focus clearly elsewhere for a brief moment, before sighing.

“Himiko, may I ask you something? My apologies if I sound rude,” He starts.

Himiko shrugs half-heartedly, “Hit me.”

“Are you aware of what  _ privacy _ is?”

The redhead chuckles in embarrassed sarcasm, her cheeks beginning to grow hot. Obviously she had been a little too blunt again.

“Sorry,” She apologizes.

Korekiyo shifts his eyes to the side, dangerously close to rolling them, “Perhaps I should be asking  _ you _ borderline invasive questions, in return. Why all of the sudden do you hold the energy of a thousand suns?”

“Har har. And I’m sorry, really,” Himiko repeats. “I just… I dunno. Trying to be more ‘out there’, I guess. Gotta keep moving forward! Everything’s gotta-- Gotta keep moving forward!!” She gestures vividly, as if pushing something towards herself. “I just want to be more energetic, you know?”

Korekiyo stares at Himiko for a long beat. He was obviously thinking. Himiko hadn’t really thought she had said anything wrong, so to say, just the truth. She did want to be more assertive and she  _ did _ want to have more energy. She didn’t want to be the Himiko Yumeno, Ultimate Magician, who sleeps through half of a killing game and gets carried for the rest. She wanted things to move forward, and if that meant making an enemy out of Miu, then so be it. If that meant investigating with somebody who  _ should have _ been her enemy, then so be it.

There wasn’t anything wrong about wanting to change, right? She isn’t the only person in the hospital who wants to be a better person, a  _ changed _ person, at least, so it surely isn’t incorrect to think that way. 

The former anthropologist breaks away from his stare to once again glance around at where they were. It’s now glaringly obvious that they’ve walked in a complete circle.

“Where to now?” Himiko asks. 

Korekiyo spends a second longer considering, before he replies with, “You still have no talent for the Talent Swap, correct?”

“Correct...”

“I believe a group of people are assembling another band down by the poolyard. Are you experienced in the art of guitar?”

-=+=-

Himiko is holding a bass guitar now.

It’s getting very hot outside. The tiny group that had handed Himiko a guitar and immediately welcomed her into their tiny band were all wearing short sleeve shirts, their jackets tied around their waists as they lounged in a circle of pool chairs, a few metres away from where Himiko currently stood. She was in a t-shirt and shorts, so she wasn’t all too bothered, but Korekiyo was still wearing practically seven layers of clothing. It was almost astonishing how he refused to remove even his jacket.

The medical tent is entirely empty. It’s been relocated to someplace much larger, to a ballroom with a lot more space. Himiko can’t help but find the vacancy of the tent rather unnerving.

It seems quite a few people were out by the poolyard. Maybe to take a breather, or get some fresh air. Himiko can’t exactly say the strength of the chlorine in the pool was helping all too much with her anxiety, but it was nice to be outside, at least. Now with an instrument.

Her new bandmates were strumming and warbling a song from where they were, and had explained that she didn’t really need to worry about being good, or anything. They were basically going to show up to the Talent Swap and take the absolute piss out of this event. Which, hearing how poorly they were performing right now, didn’t seem like an incredibly outrageous feat. They gave her a guitar and told her to go wild. So she will. By doing absolutely nothing with it.

Korekiyo and Himiko had basically considered this meeting done for the day, at least not until they’ve acquired more information, so they turn to head back into the hotel. It’s the former anthropologist who first notices Kokichi passing by, his mouth moving rapidly, as always. The purple teen was chatting with somebody, before quickly noticing the pair and making a b-line towards them. 

“I’ll let you talk,” Korekiyo states, turning on his heel and instantly gliding away, hiding in the shadow of an almost-closed umbrella. It was as if he was never there in the first place. 

Somebody else passes by Kokichi, right before he turns and skips towards Himiko. She was marching along the empty hotel hallway, her eyes wide and intently focused. The sunlight bounces against something metal in her hand before she escapes from Himiko’s view. The Ultimate Florist, if the redhead remembered correctly.

“Himi! Himi, Himi, Himi!! My one and only! My sugar snap pea! My stud-muffin!!” Kokichi chimes, sprinting towards the former mage with a cheerfulness that was highly inappropriate for the situation at hand. “Guess what I’m doing for the Swap! Guess, guess, guess!”

“I don’t know, Kokichi, what?” Himiko replies in a contrasting monotone.

“Magic!! I’m gonna be  _ you _ for a day, isn’t that cool?” He hasn’t stopped moving, his feet shuffling under him as he explained further. The redhead feels her stomach constrict at the phrase ‘ _ you for a day’. _ “I got Rantaro to be my very own, personal assistant! And I’m gonna use the Underwater Escape Trick, yeah? Yeah?”

Himiko can feel her face harden, her nose twitching upwards, “Oh… yeah…”

Kokichi’s smile widens, “I’ve already been practicing! How’s my Ryoma impression?”

He folds over, arms hanging underneath him as if suspended in water. He sways back and forth as if he was drowning. Himiko frowns at the dark joke.

“That’s not very funny...” She states.

Kokichi snaps back to a standing position with a disappointed frown, “Oh, well… It was worth a shot, at least…”

“Yeah. Not your best work.”

“So  _ mean!!  _ This marriage is so  _ toxiiiiiiiiiiiccccccc!!!” _ Kokichi bawls, intentionally creating a scene. Himiko titters in response, plucking a few guitar strings with her sweaty hands. “But it’s cool. I asked Ryoma, already. I guess the only permission that I need now is from my dearest love right in front of me!”

“It’s okay,” Himiko consents. “Just don’t be surprised if I leave the room, okay?”

“I will not be surprised! Only disappointed. Say, was that Korekiyo you were talking to just then--?”

“Oh, shit, Koko?” Rings a voice.

It’s none other than Sakine who turns the corner, the same corner that Kokichi had emerged from just seconds ago. She was dressed in a navy jumpsuit over a black turtleneck, a standard disposable mask pulled down under her chin. Was that a maintenance uniform she was wearing? One from the hotel? There was a circular nametag where her actual, convention-provided nametag should have been, with the name, “Akemi” on it. She must have taken it from that worker.

Himiko knows that Sakine and Kokichi entering from the same direction was not a coincidence. The former supreme leader was very much talking with her.

“Hey, girlie!” Sakine says, walking up towards the pair with a wide smile. Her cane was still the same one she had been using, so at least  _ that _ wasn’t stolen. “You’re alive?”

Kokichi sees that she’s made her way into the conversation and disconnects very abruptedly, running off back into the hotel. It was as if they swapped places with each other, neither of them acknowledging the other as they pass. Goodbye, Kokichi. Himiko didn’t even get the chance to wave in his direction.

Himiko gets over his disappearance quickly, finding it slightly concerning how her state of survival was expressed as a question. 

“...Yes? Was I not supposed to be?” She attempts at light humour.

“Oh, well…” The Ultimate Chess Player was still smiling, but her gaze fell down towards the redhead’s feet before snapping back upwards to meet her gaze, completely disregarding whatever she was on about. “How are things? How’s it hanging with the treeman?”

“Treeman?”

“Me?” Korekiyo asks, having seemingly teleported to Himiko’s side again.

The redhead flinches very unnoticeably, narrowing her eyes, “...We need to put a bell on you, or something…”

“Yeah, you! You guys have been, like, totally hanging around together!” Sakine says joyfully. Himiko and Korekiyo share a nervous glance. “Especially you-- Korekiyo, wasn’t it? Everytime I turn a corner, it’s like you  _ just _ manage to disappear from my vision! Isn’t that, like, so absolutely hilarious?”

Korekiyo can only stare, “...Yes.”

The chess player hums under her breath, the corners of her eyes crinkling in delight. She notices his journal, still open in his hands, “Say, what’s that?”

“Notebook,” He answers, snapping it closed.

“Oh, cool! Mind if I take a looksie at that code you’re writing? I’m sure I’d find it  _ real _ interesting.”

This is embarrassing. And a little intimidating, if Himiko was entirely honest. Sakine was still smiling, her expression relatively unmoved, but there was something in her voice that implied she was angry. And maybe she had a little right to be. The pair  _ had _ been following her around, and if Sakine figured that out she had every right to believe it was an invasion of privacy. It was the same situation with Miu: if Himiko and Korekiyo were suspicious of Sakine, then surely she had the right to be suspicious back.

“Ah. As the Ultimate Chess Player, you must have an affinity to analysis,” Korekiyo replies back sharply, holding his journal much closer to his chest. It seems that he has diverged from simple one-word replies, and has finally found the confidence to answer more efficiently. “However, I can assure you that I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about--”

“Oh, analysis. Totally. Y’know, codes, patterns, anagrams, ciphers, fun stuff like that!” She lists. Korekiyo’s eyebrows raise at the word  _ anagram, _ in a manner that implies he might be catching on to something. Himiko looks back and forth between the two and can’t help but feel slightly excluded from this conversation. “And  _ predictions _ as well! Because I  _ also _ know all about you eavesdropping on  _ that _ conversation, earlier.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Korekiyo denies.

“Is there something you, like, want? Is there a reason why you’re dragging Koko along with you?”

Himiko almost opens her mouth to explain that it wasn’t, in fact, Korekiyo who was dragging this investigation forward, but rather herself. It is quickly overridden with common sense and the slight fear that Sakine would immediately snap at her.

Korekiyo has no response for the chess player.

Himiko really was starting to hate his mask. She had already held quite the distaste towards it, for killing game related reasons, but now she hated it because of how much of his facial expression it covered. She was already terrible at reading faces, but reading  _ half _ of a face was even  _ worse.  _ He wasn’t stating anything out loud, was not outwardly expressing that he had suddenly made a brilliant revelation regarding the identity of Sakine Hujomon, so Himiko is left to sit there, dumbly, and gape at the pair as they continue their unofficial staring contest.

Sakine is the first to break eye contact, turning towards the former mage with a friendly grin. Korekiyo breaks from his own trance and once more opens his journal, holding it closely to his chest but far away enough that Himiko could just barely see the page he was scribbling on.

“I’m totes glad you’re okay!” The chess player expresses giddily. “Make sure to stay safe, yeah? I heard there’s an enforcement team being finalized.”

_ Finalized? _ As in, the enforcement team was actually  _ happening? _ It seemed like a good idea at first glance, but handing random participants weapons and expecting them to act responsibly with it just didn’t seem rational. 

Something about the way Sakine said things made Himiko believe that wasn’t  _ supposed _ to be okay. Like perhaps there was another timeline where she had died last night, had been trampled or shot down. It worried the redhead, creating a heavy pit deep in her stomach. There was something very wrong about the brunette in front of her, something that stood on the very tip of Himiko’s tongue but refused to make itself visible. 

Korekiyo scrawls at his journal. Himiko just manages to catch an actual letter. He wasn’t writing in code, making it very clear to the redhead that he wants her to see.

“I better get going! Something big is gonna happen with a florist and I wanna be as far away as possible,” Sakine waves happily, gifting the former anthropologist one last backhanded stare before she began to slowly back away. “If you have any problems, then  _ come to me, _ yeah?”

_ Instead of sneaking around behind my back,  _ is the implied rest of the phrase.

“Yeah, uh--” Himiko begins, almost guiltily.

Her eyes trail over towards Korekiyo’s journal. His writing is bold, his pencil dulling from the sheer force to which he was applying to his words. Himiko was trying desperately not to draw attention towards the notebook, cursing herself for not creating a big enough distraction to divert Sakine away from this sneaky note Korekiyo was writing. Himiko’s fake “Master” would laugh at how poorly she was applying her magician skills to real life situations.

**_ANAGRAM,_** Korekiyo’s note reads rather harshly, **_SAKINE HUJOMON =_** ** _ANAGRAM._**

“See you later,” Himiko continues, her words slurring way too tellingly as Korekiyo turns away from the pair. He leaves the conversation before anybody could call him out, taking his vague note with him, disappearing before he reaped the consequences.

Sakine notices. There’s something in her face that twitches, her smile lowering for the briefest of seconds into a frown. One that Himiko just couldn’t recognize. Fear? Disdain? Dread? 

“Baaiiiiiiii!” She waves gracefully, pulling her mask back over her face. “Love ya!”

“...Yeah,” Is all the redhead could manage, body cold.

She’s gone. Himiko stands, alone and dumbly, holding onto a foreign instrument and staring outwards. Her mind scrambles to grasp just what Korekiyo had said, piecing letters together frantically and rearranging words until they just didn’t make sense anymore. But it’s information, at  _ least. _ Something very important that will drive this investigation forward. A “lead”, to copy Shuichi’s detective lingo. A breakthrough to strive towards.

There was something very suspicious about that Ultimate Chess Player. And it surely was only going to get worse, now that “Sakine” knows she’s been compromised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 39/40


	24. did you just what? is what you, yes?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> weaponry has been handed out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY!!!!! HEY CHECK OUT THIS ART OF MIU'S FIT BY LILLIANTA!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1l9DAps9UxCdV9gjLoXXwRo5pcEWskhBU?usp=sharing
> 
> enjoy the chapter!! <33

**Season 53 Group Chat**

**May 21st, 2:46 PM**

**bakamatsu:** Hi guys, lunch is almost over so make sure you get something to eat!!

 **Shuichi Saihara:** no offense kaede but i don’t think anybody really wants to go to the dining hall haha

 **bakamatsu:** That’s okay! I just thought we could all meet up somewhere 

**bakamatsu:** Just to make sure everybody’s doing alright

 **Miu Iruma:** im busy

 **Angie Yonaga:** ^^^

 **rantaro bitch:** is everybody good to go for the talent swap? i havent heard anything from kirumi ryoma or uh angie i think

 **rantaro bitch:** wait angie’s helping with the fashion thing nvm 

**Ryoma Hoshi:** painting a set for one of the plays they’re doing 

**rantaro bitch:** kirumi?

 **Kirumi Tojo:** Soccer.

 **Kirumi Tojo:** See, the joke is that I am physically unable to do so, considering how I am currently in a wheelchair.

 **rantaro bitch:** no i got it that was really funny!

 **Kirumi Tojo:** Thank you, I’ve been working on it. And, to answer seriously, I am the sign language interpreter for one of the performers. 

**Miu Iruma:** skipping lunch im doing shit

 **bakamatsu:** :/

 **Miu Iruma:** im not hungry

 **Gonta Gokuhara:** I Have everybgody in my room Kaede We’re eating lunch here :D

 **bakamatsu:** Miu please get food eventually 

**bakamatsu:** Thank you, Gonta! :D

 **Gonta Gokuhara:** 8===D

 **rantaro bitch:** MIU I KNOW YOU TAUGHT HIM THAT

 **Miu Iruma:** I DIDN’T DO SHIT DICK CHEESE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-=+=-

“Four cardinal rules to firing a gun,” Fuyuhiko begins, his arms folded over his chest. “What are they?”

 _Fuuuucckkkk,_ Miu should have been paying attention a LOT more than she had been, “S-Shit, uhh… Always treat the firearm as if it was loaded?”

“That’s one,” He nods sternly. Miu’s mouth hangs open in an attempt to remember the others. “There are three more--”

“I know, I know! Don’t rush genius!!”

God damnit. Her mind’s scrambled like fucking eggs. This was important, _very_ important, both for her own knowledge and to let the other enforcement team members know she was capable of holding a gun without shooting anybody in the knee accidentally. She wanted to be somebody they could trust with a weapon, not just some dumb puppy that scrambles after the team and offers basically nothing other than a cutting insult and some common knowledge every now and again. No matter how much she trusted them in return, she wanted them to trust her. It was very much only a personal thing.

The Iris Ballroom was much more occupied now, filled with solemn yet determined participants, who had all gathered for the sole purpose of joining the team. Many were being asked questions by Mondo, Sayaka, and even Peko, probably concerning their knowledge of firearms or weapons. Miu had scanned over their nametags as they entered the room. Ultimate Police Officer. Ultimate Sniper. Ultimate Karate Master. Ultimate Army Sergeant. 

These are people who know how to hurt.

Miu was standing near the back of the room, waiting rather patiently with antsy anticipation for Fuyuhiko to stop quizzing her and hand her the gun already. He was being much more diligent and meticulous with her, quote on quote, “training”, than he was the others in the room, making _very_ sure that she was what she was doing with the weapon. The Ultimate Yakuza paces in front of her while Miu stands rigidly still. Akane eats from a takeaway box in the row of chairs to their right.

“A-Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction?” Miu guesses, her voice high in uncertainty.

Fuyuhiko acknowledges her dubiousness with furrowed eyebrows, but continues to pace in front of her with a firm, “That’s two.”

Miu rolls her eyes. She’s halfway there, but still found herself blanking, a long “uuhhhhhh” escaping from her lips as her mouth continues to hang open.

“Always keep your trigger off of the finger!” She states with complete certainty and vindication.

“Other way around,” Fuyuhiko corrects.

“Fuckin’ whatever! And the last one is, uh, making sure you’re aware of who’s in your line of fire so your doohickey doesn’t hit the other thingymabob!!” Miu finishes vaguely. She bows with arrogance, believing wholeheartedly that she had passed whatever exam Fuyuhiko was running. The former inventor returns upwards with a much straighter spine, extending her hand towards the man. “Now hand it over, pipsqueak!” 

The Ultimate Yakuza’s face boils red with sudden anger, and Miu preemptively whimpers in retaliation before he is able to open his mouth and snap at the nickname. Akane interrupts, unknowingly but still conveniently, gulping down a mouthful of food before butting in.

“Yo, aren’t you hungry? Lunch is almost over and you’ve been at this for, like--” She checks her right wrist for an imaginary watch. “Thirty minutes.”

“You think a genius like me can’t tell the fuckin’ time?” Miu retorts. “I’m not hungry.”

“Is there _any_ form of a filter in you?” Fuyuhiko grits, again causing the strawberry blonde to flinch in shame.

Akane shoves her chopsticks into the takeaway box and extends the food towards the strawberry blonde, shaking the dish as if calling a cat to its meal. There’s clear hesitation written across Miu’s face, but she eventually grabs the offering with a reluctant huff and a murmur of gratitude. The former inventor grumbles pettily as she stabs at the food. Her stomach was definitely rumbling, but just couldn’t seem to work up any kind of appetite. 

Fuyuhiko looks up at the ceiling for a long moment, his lips pursed in what could only be muted irritation. It’s taking all of his patience not to scream at the terribly rude social skills of this teenager.

“Eat your food, we’ll start again later,” He says, turning away to presumably help other people.

Miu sputters, pieces of rice flying from her mouth, “Ey, ey! What the fuck, I haven’t even _touched_ a gun!”

His eyes squint. It’s very clear he doesn’t want to give her a weapon. And he was probably right, in that sense. Miu had signed up to be the brains (and the self-proclaimed beauty) of this enforcement team, and that position did not require a handgun. Miu reckons it was less about holding a weapon than it was about holding something she could protect herself with, less about having a gun and more about the _idea_ of having a gun. If that made any sense. Miu was intelligent, that was for sure, but articulation of her true thoughts always proved to be a struggle.

She begins funnelling what was left of Akane’s food into her mouth to bypass the process and start again _now,_ eager about the topic and suddenly very intent on holding a firearm. There were participants near the iron locker who were taking stock of the weapons and handing them out accordingly, passing them to the others while Miu got tested and tested and tested. It might have had something to do with the fact that she had never held or fired a gun before, subsequently holding absolutely no knowledge about the dangerous firearm. The other members of the enforcement team had knowledge, most likely stemming from their prewritten talents and memories, but the amount of experience they have is up in the air. The Ultimate Hitman might have memories of shooting a gun in the simulator, but it doesn’t mean they’ve _actually_ shot a gun. 

So what was the fucking harm in giving Miu one, eh? Forget about the morals of providing a teenager with a firearm, the former inventor would rather be safe than ethically correct.

Fuyuhiko’s face scrunches as if he had sucked on something sour, “Alright, don’t get _too_ fuckin’ eager. We’re tryin’ to be careful, here.”

Miu wheezes in sarcastic laughter, before throwing her hands in the direction of the scene around them, “You think this is _careful?_ You _liscenced_ to hand out firearms, tough guy!? You’ve got no right to say I’m gettin’ all heated! A-At least, not unless you’re talkin’ about another type of heated, if you catch my drift--”

“Aren’t you the computer kid? The hell do you need a gun for!?” Fuyuhiko retorts, “I taught you the basics, and that’s all I was told to do! If you’re so desperate, then go talk to Mondo, or something. Jesus.”

“Yeah, dude... Maybe you don’t need one!” Akane offers gently, still fairly oblivious. “If anybody comes up to you, you just give him the old--” She uppercuts the air. _“Wah-pah!_ Y’know? I could teach ya, if you want! I had to teach a _ton_ of my siblings how to throw a proper punch.”

“...I’m all good, lady. I don’t need fistin’ lessons from a--” The former inventor notices mid-sentence that Fuyuhiko is gone now, having left once her back was turned. “Ey!! What the--!?”

“Don’t stress it, he’s got a ton of people to chat with,” Akane shrugs. She points at the takeaway box, the one that Miu was still very clearly eating, “Hey, are you finished with that?”

“Y-You _just_ gave it to me…!”

“Aw, man… I did, didn’t I…” She sighs, her shoulders deflating.

Miu blinks, “You’re a real piece a’ work, you know that?”

“Yeah, I’m kind of an idiot!” The gymnast agrees, picking at stray grains of rice inbetween her teeth with her pinkie. “That’s just who I am, though. Got used to it, after a while. No harm, no foul… or whatever that saying is.”

 _‘Who I am’_ was the polite and considerably less depressing way of saying _‘who I was prewritten to be’._ Miu’s face contorts from her usually exaggerated demeanor and instead shifts to an interested form of confusion.

“Well, at least you’re self-aware,” She compliments backhandedly. 

“Oh, yeah. I’m an idiot, but I’m not stupid, y’know?”

“Uh--” It made sense, but at the same time didn’t make sense at all. “Y-Yeah, whatever. Is there a reason I need to be in this sewerage? I’m too useful to be sitting around like a used cumsock!!” 

Akane clicks her tongue, swinging her legs around so that they face forward. Sitting at her side was an unloaded handgun with the safety on, ammunition sitting expectantly in the gymnast’s back pocket. Miu notices it and practically sputters again, once more reminded that she was one of the only people in this god forsaken team that didn’t have a weapon, gesturing angrily with her hands. Her mouth moves faster than her brain can and she’s once again opening and closing her lips in disbelief.

“Not really,” The gymnast answers, still on topic despite Miu having moved on to the handgun next to her. “It sucks… I’m so bored… Thought I’d be punchin’ more people…” 

It’s great to know that one of the starters of this enforcement team has seemingly only joined just to punch people. It wasn’t the worst motive, and probably wasn’t her _only_ motive, either, but it still felt a little silly. And what was even sillier was how okay she seemed with her fists being her only weapon despite being given, and now holding, a firearm. The gun felt rather unneccessary, in a way. Miu wouldn’t doubt for a second that Akane could just pummel a man to death if required. Giving her a gun just seemed like overkill. Giving _Miu_ a gun seemed more reasonable in the former inventor’s mind, because compared to Akane, who had a physical talent and clear muscles, the strawberry blonde just wasn’t as strong. She was still pretty brawny, don’t get her wrong, it’s just that Akane made everybody seem puny in contrast.

This sucks. This sucks so much ass. Miu needs to be doing something, and none of these idiots seem to be helping at all. This room was too loud. She wants to be alone again. Miu’s getting very used to sitting at her hotel desk in the complete dark and doing her work privately. 

Fuyuhiko had suggested she chat with Mondo if she really wanted to be armed like the rest of them, but knowing the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader she will most certainly be turned down. It was futile to try, meaning that Miu served no purpose being here. What did they expect her to do, make friends? Kiss her ass. 

“Bleh, I’m out. Don’t miss me too much,” She waves half-heartedly, throwing the takeaway box to Akane. 

The gymnast, upon noticing that her offering was no longer being eaten by Miu, dives for the food. Once it’s already in her mouth, she waves back cheerfully.

She has a gun. Miu does not, but she’s almost positive that if it really came down to it, she could just find Akane.

-=+=-

Miu has signed up for the Talent Swap.

She was feeling particularly bold, for some reason. Of course, she practically _always_ acted bold, and you could argue that the brash, impulsive nature of her dialogue was bold enough as it is. But she’s _feeling_ confident. She marched right up to a signup sheet and was now a part of the lighting crew for Danganronpa’s unofficial production of _Macbeth._

This confidence seemed warped, in a way. Her confidence was normally half-hearted, or incredibly fidgety in a way that could crumble rather easily, but this one felt more deep-rooted. It was probably the contrast between the extreme emotion felt the previous day and this morning, versus the sense of security that is beginning to bury its way into her stomach. Maybe she should rephrase her previous statement. She’s not confident. The security is _making_ her confident.

She would love to run into Kokichi right now. She’s entering this smug, overcompensatingly cocky persona. Miu is ready to fling insults. She’s not tired anymore. She’s recovered from this morning, and is now filled with wild, sparkling electricity that runs directly up her spine and through her fingers. The former inventor is in a love-hate relationship with this energy, because very normally it is taken to the absolute extreme and she enters a hyper-focus that can not be dismissed. 

If she was still an inventor, she would be throwing herself at a new project. Miu has new ideas upon new ideas, rushing at her with viscous intensity at random points throughout the day, but they mean practically nothing to her now. She isn’t-- _won’t_ be the inventor. So now all of this energy rushed through her rather needlessly, not aimed at anything anymore and instead running wildly. Translating into heightened emotions, maybe. She never really listens to her therapist.

She’s just about to log onto her phone and ask K1-B0 what the fuck she signed up for with the whole lighting crew thing when she runs past Makoto. Talking to none other than the man, the gentle giant himself, Gonta Gokuhara. 

He’s holding a rather massive stack of folders, all of them most likely containing legal documents, ones that Makoto would have immense trouble holding himself. They’ve stopped in the middle of the hallway. Makoto chats with a Danganronpa official while Gonta hovers awkwardly next to them, his smile still visible but his face hardened in the way that tells Miu he’s trying to process their conversation. His cheeks twitch occasionally as he raps his fingers against the folders, waiting politely for Makoto to finish his conversation. They’re blocking Miu’s way.

She should have turned around, but Miu was feeling particularly bold today.

“Oh, Miu! I actually wanted to talk to you-- Excuse me,” Makoto begins, respectfully turning away from the Danganronpa official. “Did Chihiro reach you with the, uh, USB card?”

Gonta notices her approaching and nearly drops the folders he’s holding, awkwardly leaning away before he realizes that he can’t just ditch Makoto when he’s carrying the Ultimate Hope’s items. To compensate, he returns back to his neutral standing position, avoiding Miu’s gaze like the plague. Miu’s stomach clenches but she otherwise remains unbothered. 

“None of your beeswax!” The former inventor returns every-so-politely back, “I got shit to be doin’, so if you’ll move your fat asses out of the way--”

“Oh, right, but I was just wondering if you’ve made any progress?”

Miu stares at him for a moment, _“Duh,_ of course not! I’d be outta this shithole by now!”

Makoto exhales through his nose, his demeanor less smily and more exhausted-looking, similar to their conversation yesterday. The danganronpa official was frowning at her frequent curse words to the point where Miu was frowning right back at her, skipping past the defensive stage of her rebuttal and straight onto the pettier side.

Gonta hands must have been getting sweaty. He adjusts the stack of folders in his hands, shifting himself around. Miu’s attention is averted.

“Aren’t you supposed to be with the other virgins?” She asks him sternly.

Gonta smiles nervously at her, swallowing hard, “U-Uh, Gonta left to grab more food for my friends! I… found Makoto... offered to hold his books for him. Like a true gentleman.”

In some ways it’s a bit mean that Miu feels that cocky about making him nervous. It’s this backwards feeling of, _“Yeah, you_ **_should_ ** _be nervous, bitch”,_ almost as if twisting their dynamic around. She, reasonably, should be _scared_ of her killer, yes? Maybe she was scared, deep down. She definitely didn’t trust him, or basically anybody, that’s for sure. But from where they stood currently, Gonta was more nervous around her. Maybe he was just really uncomfortable being around somebody he murdered. Maybe he was scared she’ll try to get back at him. Maybe he was scared he’ll pull something again.

“I appreciate it, Gonta,” Makoto expresses, before turning back to the former inventor. “We’re just heading to--”

“We’re heading to an office, we have things to discuss,” The Danganronpa official cuts in, as if intentionally speeding up their conversation. “Are you able to carry those yourself?”

“Oh, uh…”

“And who the hell are you?” Miu demands. In a way, she’s defending the clearly exhausted Makoto by butting in, but at the same time is being a general nuisance. “I haven’t heard from any of _your_ kind all fuckin’ day! What have _you_ been doing about all this, triangle tits?”

 _“Woah--_ Miu--” Makoto waves to a stop with sudden urgency, addressing the official with a nervous laugh. “She didn’t mean that--”

“No, I did!” The former inventor corrects. “I know this shitty company has _something_ to do with all this… And I’m _always_ right!!”

Makoto grits his smile in a way that was desperately pleading with her to stop talking. He was so worried about her continuing to run her mouth, now very frantic to pause this conversation before Miu gets herself into trouble. Gonta was a little behind, but he passes the folders into Makoto’s hands and scratches at the back of his head, patting at the ponytail his hair was in.

“Well, you are not right about this,” The official dismisses with a hardened stare, one that Makoto noticeably winces at. “Miu Iruma, wasn’t it?”

“Gorgeous girl genius, that’s me!” She boasts, flipping hair over her shoulder. Hair gets stuck in her ear piercings and suddenly the notion wasn’t as cool.

“Quite the character, aren’t we, Miu?”

The former inventor’s nostrils flare, her eyes darting between Gonta and the official infront of her, “Wh-- That’s all on _you,_ lady!”

“Goodbye! I have… to talk to friends, now,” Gonta excuses in an uncoordinated hurry, backing away slowly. He doesn’t finish, and doesn’t elaborate on who he has to talk to, instead opting for speed instead of substance. Before he completely turns away, he flips towards the strawberry blonde, preparing himself before he asks, “Can I… talk to Miu later…?”

Miu knows exactly what it was going to be about. She doesn’t have to ask. The thought of sitting and talking with this man, alone, about her death, about the very event that has kept her awake at night and leaves her on edge in the morning, sent dread directly down into her stomach. It didn’t matter how _he_ felt if _she_ was uncomfortable with it. 

Miu hums, pondering the idea bitterly, before she clicks her tongue and replies with, “No.”

“O-Okay,” Gonta responds, face contorting with guilt. “Bye.”

“Yeah,” She mutters under her breath.

The entomologist spares one last remorseful glance before he passes by Miu, walking in the direction that she had come from. The former inventor has to angle herself so that she’s able to view both Makoto as well as Gonta leaving, making sure neither of them have the _chance_ to sneak up behind her. Especially not that six foot gorilla of an entomologist walking away from her.

“Thank you for your help, Gonta!” Makoto waves from behind, bypassing the obvious tension between the pair. “Miu, we have to leave now. Is everything alright with you before I get going?”

Absolutely not, “Yeah.”

“Cool,” Makoto smiles. “Keep having hope, okay? Make good choices.”

She will not, “Okay, whatever.”

The official next to him exhales in impatience, already starting to walk past Miu, expecting Makoto to trail along behind her with the folders. The Ultimate Hope spares one last, waveringly optimistic grin at her before he follows. Miu once again has to watch them leave, ensuring that nobody sneaks up from behind before she continues on her trail back to her hotel room.

Makoto is halfway around the corner when somebody screams.

Miu’s attention is piqued almost instantly, her entire body tensing in preparation for some kind of attack. It comes from the direction that the Ultimate Hope entered from, bouncing through the first floor. It was a shrill plea, a desperate cry.

 _“Get off of me!”_ A girl was shouting, her voice warbling and high with anxiety. _“Get off--!!”_

The former inventor finds herself running rather stupidly in the direction of the commotion. She always hated girls in horror movies who did that, always threw her popcorn at the screen whenever somebody obliviously ran towards the sound and subsequently got murdered, but still finds herself echoing that notion now. She was feeling bold. Overconfident. 

She doesn’t know anybody in the fight once she turns the corner. Every participant involved was a stranger, people that Miu only had brief recognition of. There was a man, who she _thinks_ is the Ultimate Moral Compass, who was hunched against the left wall, clutching painfully at a nasty gash on his right arm. His teeth are gritted and it's clear this injury has _just_ happened, as in, as soon as Miu turned the corner. The Ultimate Moral Compass was presumably attempting to break up the real stars of the scene, who were still going at it in the middle of the hallway.

Miu knows that the one on the floor was from Season 52. Rantaro had caught up with her on the first day, in a manner that made it obvious they knew each other. Ultimate Astrologist? No matter her talent, it was clear she was losing this fight against the Ultimate Florist, who had her pinned down on the carpet, wrangling her to the ground and smacking away her flailing arms. There was something metal in the florist’s pocket. The light from above reflects off of its mirror-like surface.

“What the hell!?” Miu exclaims. It’s not helpful at all.

The astrologist looks up, her eyes wide and overwrought, “Help me! _Please!”_

Miu didn’t _exactly_ know what to do, but she reckons if she just bull-rushed the florist it should work, right? Like, shit. She doesn’t have any actual training. _Or_ a weapon, all thanks to the more than useless enforcement team. This moment would be a stellar example of how helpless she is without a firearm, and will be great evidence once she finds Mondo again. Of course, she’s not too sure why a firearm would assist in this situation, considering they just seemed to be fighting. 

Just seemed to be.

Miu marches forward with a huff. They’re all the way down the hallway, leaving the former inventor a lot of time to analyze what was happening. The Ultimate Moral Compass (Kiyotaka, right?) was definitely looking light-headed, because he surely would have stood up to assist by now, right? How the hell did he even get that gash? The Ultimate Florist’s nails were sharp, but clean, meaning it couldn’t have been a large scratch. It would have been an _impressive_ scratch, that was for sure, because holy hell was Taka bleeding. 

What else could have done that? There wasn’t anything on the floor that could have given him that wound. The gears were turning in Miu’s head. There wasn’t anything on the floor, meaning somebody must have another weapon. It must have been a knife. Those were easily accesible from the kitchen. So somebody has a knife on their person. It only makes sense for it to be the Ultimate Florist, right? It only makes sense for the florist to have the knife. So, to conclude, the Ultimate Florist, who currently has Kiyotaka wounded against a wall and the Ultimate Astrologist pinned to the ground, has a knife. 

Miu is always right. But Miu is not fast enough.

The florist, with wild desperation in her eyes, yanks the kitchen knife from her back pocket and raises it over her head. The astrologist barely has time to scream in horror before the blade is brought down into her chest.

There’s electricity at the very tips of Miu’s fingers. Electricity that runs from her head, down her spine. Through her body until it reaches her toes. Her feet come to an abrupt stop, pauses much quicker than the rest of her body does until she’s wobbling forward. Her mouth opens as if she was going to scream, her eyes wide and unblinking, but no noise is emitted. Her body takes a moment to process, as if it had shut down and been restarted, her senses tingling but her limbs unmoving. She was halfway down the hall. She wasn’t close enough to do anything.

Makoto turns the corner seconds after the first stab. Miu doesn’t turn around at his footsteps, her eyes fixated on the scene, but she can hear a very sharp intake of breath from behind her. At his gasp, the former inventor flinches and flips herself to face him, her movements suddenly rapid and frenzied, her head whipping back and forth between the bewildered Ultimate Hope and the scene. 

Miu wasn’t helping. No fucking _way_ was she getting close to that crazy bitch of a florist. This sudden instinct, this overwhelming sense of flight that runs up her body and urges her not to get close, prevents her from running in and being the hero. Fuck being the hero! _Fuck that!_

The astrologist had to be gone by now. The second stab seemed to have drained what little life was left of her. Maybe it was the more merciful option, considering everything. Maybe it was better that she died almost instantly. Those few seconds of terror were over for her, the moment of pain and misery fleeting and unlasting. Miu would much rather perish instantly than suffer in some futile attempt to live.

There’s no way Miu would be able to assist the astrologist without running in and getting herself hurt in the process. Even before the astrologist died, her fate was sealed.

And she can’t do anything from a distance, because god forbid they give the former inventor a gun.

Nobody knows what to do. They can only stand, watch in horror as shock freezes them entirely, sharply inhaling at the sight. It takes perhaps three seconds, maximum, of them just standing in bewilderment before more people come running in from Makoto’s direction. Mondo must have heard, maybe, or perhaps been alerted of the situation by the confused Akane, who runs in after him. 

Miu’s head hurts. It’s beginning to reek of blood, the familiar sensation of a sharp, metallic scent burning her nosehairs and sending an icy shiver down her spine. It shouldn’t be familiar. _It shouldn't be familiar._

“Hey, what the--” Akane begins to address the former inventor as he turns the corner, but very quickly notices the florist and freezes mid sentence.

The strawberry blonde whips her towards her. It happens so quickly, the moment so fleeting and everything moving so rapidly and furiously that Miu barely has any time to catch her breath. She’s frantically searching for an answer, her analytic brain checking for something that can be done, _anything_ that can assist in this moment. Whether it helps herself or helps the poor Ultimate Astrologist. 

Her gaze falls to Akane’s back pocket.

She still has the gun. Akane still has the gun.

 _“Shoot!”_ Miu demands desperately, sprinting back towards the enforcement team for some kind of protection as she points at the weapon in the gymnast’s pocket. _“Fucking shoot, Akane!”_

Akane, who has yet to process the situation, hears the command and grabs at her weapon with a flustered warble from the back of her throat. The moment is too quick for her to understand and come to terms with it. All she can recognize is the severity, all she knows is that there is a threat in front of her. Akane steps in front of Miu, waving the horrified former inventor behind her as she frantically inserts the magazine until it clicks into place.

There is no warning. There is no shout for everybody to get down. Akane points and shoots.

It’s over as quickly as it had started. The gunshot reverberates through the first floor, ringing in Miu’s ears and deafening her for the slightest of moments. As if it would help in any way, the strawberry blonde clutches desperately at them, as if the sound would go away if her ears were covered and her eyes were squinted closed. The Ultimate Florist topples backwards, her eyes still wide open, staring upwards at the ceiling eternally. 

Silence. Miu wasn’t sure if it was from the gunshot deafening her or the entire room being filled with stifling shock. 

“... _Shit,”_ Akane breathes, her voice powerless as the gun lowers in her hands.

Miu’s eyes are still squeezed closed. Her hands do not move from where they are positioned over her ears, her face does not soften from it’s scrunched expression. It’s the first time in a while that she doesn’t care for her surroundings, doesn’t flinch when somebody breathes from behind her or reacts wildly when somebody moves somewhere outside of her peripheral vision. She’s silent, head down, hands over her ears, eyes squeezed closed. She stays like that even when the ringing in her ears comes to a stop. She stays like that even as people begin to shuffle around her, slowly inching forward to assess the damage.

Someone sighs heavily, their exhale cut short in clear distress.

“...Wanna reconsider _now?”_ Mondo hisses in Makoto’s direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 37/40
> 
> himiko's pov: growing closer and finding forgiveness in somebody who has hurt you :) working together with a partner to solve mysteries :) learning how to play the bass guitar :) discovering who you can be outside of your fictional self :)
> 
> miu's pov: *slamming fists against a table* DEATH MURDER DEATH MURDER DEATH MURDER DEATH MURDER DEA


	25. father, your honor, may i explain?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> miu has some explaining to do, himiko and korekiyo have a new lead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *miu voice* YOU'RE LATE!!! THE WAR'S ALREADY STARTED

“I don’t know what to fuckin’ tell ya, ‘Taro,” Miu mutters, her voice remarkably weak. She can’t bear to maintain eye contact with the teenager, instead turning firmly towards her laptop, which sits politely on her hotel’s desk. “It-- It just _happened.”_

Miu Iruma isn’t good at comforting people. This is a fact that has already been established. Her vulgar and harsh words would have to be minced and shoved through various filters to sound even remotely comforting or appropriate to the situation. Her condolences about death sound childish and rather facetious, her apologies half-hearted and borderline ingenuine sounding. She just isn’t good at it. It’s not a talent she possesses. 

And she’s definitely not in the mood for it, either. She would rather be doing _anything_ than talk to Rantaro. She would do absolutely _anything_ to avoid having to be the one to tell him what had happened in that hallway, would do absolutely anything to just skip this entire day like a video player and move on. She just needs to move on. She doesn’t have the time, or even the emotional strength, to slow down and rewind. 

God, at least Kaede was there. The blonde was standing next to where Rantaro was sitting, her hand supportively on his shoulder but her facial expression frozen in shock. She hasn’t said anything yet, and has only lifted her hand to Rantaro’s shoulder to let him know she was there for him. Miu shouldn’t have expected Kaede to completely take over, especially considering the severity of the information at hand. Miu wasn’t sure _what_ she was expecting, honestly. Perhaps she had hoped Kaede would soften the blow, somehow, would be the filter that she so desperately needed in that situation. She usually was. Miu overestimated the extent of Kaede’s abilities.

Rantaro has had a hand over his mouth ever since the news got dropped. He was sitting dumbly on the edge of Kaede’s hotel bed, staring darkly at the wall in front of him. Nobody in that room was maintaining eye contact with another person. Miu wasn’t sure how she’d react if Kaede were to glance over with one of her usual looks of concern. The former inventor would probably crumble to the floor and evaporate, instantly. 

“Oh, shit,” is the first thing Rantaro says.

His gaze was still distant as he ran his right hand down his face, before resting his chin on top of his knuckles. His eyes were growing glassy but his face remained unmoving. Miu still wouldn’t turn around to face him, instead staring at her screen and willing it to turn on without her having to raise her arms.

‘Oh, shit’ indeed. 

It almost hurts Miu to admit that she sorta saw this coming. Or, at least, she was preparing herself for something like this to happen. She didn’t hold this idealistic vision of the Danganronpa participants in her head, didn’t have high hopes for these strangers. Hell, she didn’t have high hopes for the people she _did_ know. She knew, having both known deep down and also explicitly stated it out loud, that these people were not trustworthy. These were irrational, desperate, emotionally tormented people who very much were going to snap in this kill-or-be-killed situation. Even fucking _Miu_ _herself_ was irrational, desperate, and emotional tormented. She doesn’t trust these people, because she _is_ ‘these people’. And it made every sense in her mind that somebody would get angry and vengeful, made every sense that somebody would walk off of a roof in complete despair. It would make every single sense in Miu’s mind that somebody would look at such a large count like forty and take that opportunity to stab another person.

“Oh, _god,”_ Rantaro says, once more running his hands down face. He closes his eyes tightly, rubbing at his eyelids before any water falls down his cheeks. “Shit-- Okay, wow… I gotta tell-- I gotta tell other people. I gotta tell the others.”

 _Take your time,_ Kaede tries to advise. 

Miu wasn’t sure if Rantaro even saw that, to be quite fair. He inhales deeply, pauses, and then exhales in a trembling sigh. There’s something incredibly hollow about his demeanor, an aura about him that excudes light-headedness. Miu felt dizzy and overwhelmed just looking at the teenager. 

Rantaro stands for a moment, his hands on his hips as his eyebrows furrow, as if in complete disbelief. He looked as if he was going to leave for a second, but now he stood rigidly in the middle of the hotel room. His head slowly lifts upwards towards where Miu sat, until she eventually has to return incredibly timid eye contact. Her gaze flickers between his green irises and the floor.

“...She’s gone?” He asks in shaky wariness, grasping onto hope that just wasn’t there. “She’s… really dead?”

Miu blinks and the scene comes rolling back to her. It had happened so quickly, the death count minusing by three in a time period just too short. The sharp scent of blood still burned in her nostrils. The sound of Akane's gunshot still rings in her ears. Miu had been the one to call for that gunshot to happen. _Miu_ had.

“I don’t know how many times I gotta repeat myself,” The phrase sounded snarky, but her tone was uncharacteristically unemotional and rather apathetic. “She got stabbed. Looked pretty fuckin’ dead.”

“Okay,” Rantaro nods, slowly backing away from the two girls as he heads towards the exit. His face hadn't shifted from hardened disbelief ,and he was still nodding as he reached the door. “...I can’t believe it.”

 _Rantaro, I am_ **_so_ ** _sorry,_ Kaede tries. There are tears in her eyes. She feels such deep empathy over somebody she doesn’t even know. Miu finds it a little odd, _Losing somebody close must be so awful… I’m so sorry, this is so terrible._

“No, we weren’t that cl--” He wants to say more on that topic, but perhaps cuts himself off before he delved into his relationship with the deceased astrologist. “...It’s just so weird. She was _just at breakfast_ this morning, and now she’s--… I was sitting next to her. I was _just_ sitting next to her.”

“Yeah, and that crazy bitch of a florist was with us up on the roof,” Miu inputs. “N-Nobody in the enforcement team saw it coming, it all just went by so quickly.”

 _Nobody saw any of this coming. I am so sorry,_ Kaede repeats, like her echoing apologies would drive the point further.

“She was so nice, too. I know other people from Season Fifty-Two who were close to her,” Rantaro utters. He pauses again before sighing, his eyes shutting. “And now I have to tell them that she-- Shit. God, this is…”

Miu doesn’t know what to say. Sometimes when she thinks her sentence is appropriate, it ends up being ludicrously vulgar or incredibly flippant. Even if this kill gives her justification about why she was right about not trusting anybody in this convention, it would be more than disrespectful to blurt that out right now. That was her first instinct, but some newly-forming part in the back of her brain was starting to distinguish what was self-indulgent to say and what was respectful. 

“...I-I’m sorry,” Miu says, copying Kaede rather pathetically.

Rantaro can only sigh, reaching slowly, almost robotically, for the doorknob. 

“Thank you for…” He pauses, unhurriedly opening the door to the hotel room. “...Telling me, Miu.”

His goodbye is replaced with complete silence from all sides. Miu and Kaede watch, the latter with wide, glassy eyes, as he exits to find the rest of Season 52.

Kaede starts to pace the room as soon as he’s gone, occupying the empty space with worried footsteps. She’s hugging her chest and rubbing anxiously at her elbow, looking visibly distracted and distressed. There’s something so warped about _Miu_ being the one with the sudden confidence. It was not the right time to have confidence, so to say. Her rather dismissive behavior towards the death could be played off as complete apathy, as disrespectful shunning of a person’s life just simply ending. 

Kaede was reasonably worried about the murder. It was very, very reasonable to be as such. But Miu just didn’t feel as overwhelmingly nervous as she had the day prior. Her breathing was relatively steady, her hands still on her lap and her words somewhat calculated, if still unfiltered. The murder still replayed in her mind, haunted her and unsettled every inch of her body, but it fueled her more than it completely crumbled her. There was something so backwards about the cruel and unfair slaughtering of another person being used as justifiable evidence as to why Miu should be in this enforcement team, why Miu was correct in shunning everybody and distrusting others. 

Miu was right. She isn’t being a bad person if she was right about protecting herself, was _right_ about shoving people away. 

“Do you get it now, Blondie?” The former inventor asks, slinging one arm over the back of her chair. “You can’t trust these people.”

 _You shot her?_ Kaede replies right back, still pacing. There are tears running down her face, _The F-L-O-R-I-S-T, you shot her?_

“Me? Fuck no, cow tits! Somebody else on the team did.”

 _Somebody else on the--_ She stops abruptly, face contorting in shock, **_That’s_ ** _what the enforcement team is??_

“Wh-What do you mean!? What d-did you think it was, a fuckin’ summer camp?” Miu bites back. “You think I was sittin’ there braiding people’s hair and singin’ Kumbaya, dumbass!?”

 _I thought-- I thought--_ She hesitates before shaking her head rapidly, _I thought you were helping out with the escape plan!_

 _“Hee--_ I-I am! I am helping, but that’s not only what the _enforcement_ team does, Kae-idiot!”

 _How are you not shaken up by this? Somebody_ **_died!_ ** The blonde asks. Miu huffs in defense. _I don’t get how you could be so… so…_

“So _what,_ Bakamatsu? You don’t--” 

Kaede didn’t seem to want to listen to whatever excuse Miu was about to conjure up half-heartedly. There was something about her horrified pacing that was so familiar to the former inventor, something about the way the blonde was getting so nervous about the unknown. Miu had been like that yesterday, had scrambled for something to do and answers she could get her hands on, but was now sitting rather numbly in her chair. Kaede was worried for people she shouldn’t have to worry about, was taken by surprise when somebody results to murder. Miu found it a little ridiculous how mortified she was acting, as if they hadn’t just left a killing game where murder was the--

There’s something that sparks in the back of her mind, a realization that hits Miu suddenly. Kaede wasn’t _there._ She wasn’t there when Kirumi clobbered Ryoma over the head and drowned him in a sink, wasn’t there when Korekiyo went batshit insane and bashed Angie’s skull in with a floorboard. She wasn’t _there_ when Gonta, somebody who would “wouldn’t hurt a fly”, snuck up behind Miu and strangled her to death. Kaede had only watched it happen secondhand, like the rest of Japan had once the episode went live. It was hard to come to terms with your classmates being horrible, backstabbing, irrational people when you’ve only watched them being that type of person on a television screen.

Miu begins to stand from her chair, her lips curling upwards in what could only be explained as knowledgable cockiness. Kaede squints at her rising, stilling with her hands recoiled at her chest.

“You don’t _know_ these people like I do,” Miu says slowly, “You died before you saw any of it.”

Kaede’s eyebrows furrow even further, _I don’t get what you--_

“Th-These _aren’t_ friendly people, Kaede. You don’t-- You didn’t _see_ what had happened after you died--”

 _I_ **_saw_ ** _everything, there were still cameras,_ The former pianist insists.

“Y-You get what I fuckin’ mean!! All of us were either fuckin’ oblivious or tryin’ to kill somebody else!” She’s standing in front of Kaede, now, suddenly much taller. “W-W-We just _backstabbed_ each other whenever we fuckin’ fancied, so obviously we-- _they_ are just gonna do that shit all over again!”

Kaede’s hands waver in the air for a moment, before she continues, _Miu, I get what you’re saying, but they’ve learned from their mistakes. Nobody will do that again--_

 _“Pahaha!_ You can’t promise that shit! We took our promise to you to _‘believe in ourselves’_ and work together, or whatever, and shat all over it!! It’s like-- It’s like nobody even _remembered_ what you said--”

 _And it didn’t_ **_work_ ** _. All of them know it didn’t_ **_work,_ ** _Miu,_ Kaede pushes forward. _It’s not going to happen aga--_

Miu very suddenly grabs at Kaede’s shoulders, her breathing beginning to accelerate in her desperate attempt to get her friend to listen to her, “Don’t you get it, Bakamatsu? I-It’s already started, the killing game has _already started!_ Y-You understand why I’m not going anywhere _near_ our class of clowns, right? _Right!?_ A-A-And I’m not gonna have _you_ runnin’ around and given’ a handjob to every person who smiles in your direction, because you can’t trust these people! You can’t trust _anybody_ , and I don’t want you-- I don’t want you getting _hurt.”_

_Are you going to try to kill somebody again?_ Kaede halts abruptly. 

The former inventor wilts instantly, “Wh-What?”

 _Are you going to try to kill somebody again? Be honest,_ She repeats.

“Of course fucking not, what--”

 _Do you think_ **_I’m_ ** _going to try killing somebody again?_

Miu responds this time with much more certainty, knowing the answer is much more clear for the overwhelmingly remorseful Kaede, “No.”

 _Then there’s two people you can trust,_ The former pianist says, before taking Miu’s right hand and making the former inventor hold up two fingers involuntarily. _According to your standards._

Staring at her own two fingers causes her to sigh, releasing the air that she had been holding for what felt like too long, “No, it’s not-- Y-You just don’t… get it.”

 _Maybe you… don’t get what_ **_I’m_ ** _saying,_ Kaede echoes with the same pacing, her lips cautiously curling upwards. _Being scared is okay, Miu. But pushing every single person away is just gonna make you sad! And me sad, as well._

“But-- But, it--”

 _Maybe take a second to yourself, okay?_ The former pianist suggests. _Take a few deep breaths. I might… go and find Rantaro._

See, _this_ is what Miu was fucking talking about. Kaede was worrying about everybody that wasn’t herself. She placed so much blind trust in these people, trust that Miu just couldn’t manage to find within herself. Kaede might be worried about Miu being untrustworthy and paranoid, but the former inventor was just as scared of the blonde being too trusting. She was just so bright and goddamn sunny, so-- _so_ friendly. Miu doesn’t know how she does it. She really doesn’t know how she manages to stay so optimistic despite it all. Despite everything she’s been through.

But Kaede is getting worried, now. The news of a new death has not hit her lightly. Maybe this was for the best, Miu slowly realizes. Maybe it was for the best that Kaede comes to terms with people being cruel, deep down.

 _We’re going to talk about the enforcement team later,_ The former pianist says as she reaches the door. _Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that._

“Be safe,” Miu calls back. It’s the only thing she could think of saying right now.

The blonde pauses, a little surprised by the genuinity of the statement, before she returns a weak smile and exits.

Miu wastes no time in sitting back down at her desk and powering her laptop on, her right foot tapping repetitively on the floor as everything once more returns to its fast pace. Now that _that_ was over, she could return to work and forget about everything else that had just happened and ignore her other problems and just work. 

She looks down at her lap and realizes she’s still holding up two fingers.

-=+=-

“Ohhhhh my goooodddd…… Oh my god. Oh… my god.”

“Two days,” Korekiyo says, shaking his head in utter dissapointment as he continues down the hall. “Two days it took me to figure that out.”

“Oh my god,” Himiko continues to repeat, shuffling along next to him. “What? _What?”_

“To think that her name was an anagram this entire time… And it took me not one, but two whole days to decode it--”

Himiko stops, flipping herself around abruptly in the center of the hotel lounge, “Junko Enoshima? Are you absolutely sure?”

“It is much too convenient to be a coincidence,” Korekiyo replies firmly, with startling certainty. “I am sure.”

It still baffles the redhead. It really does. It’s not like she’s formally been introduced to Junko Enoshima, it’s not like Junko Enoshima was even a massive part of her own killing game, but it was pretty hard not to know who she was. It was almost impossible to be in the Danganronpa community and _not_ know who the Ultimate Despair was. She’s in every advertisement, in all of the promos and commercials, sits slyly off to the side in every convention panel, makes a reappearance in almost _every_ season no matter how little or big the cameo. Himiko can’t escape her constant appearances, whether it be in magazines or in news articles, whether it be fan theories or intricate cosplays that sneak their way into Himiko’s Instagram timeline. When you think of Danganronpa, you think of Junko-fucking-Enoshima. She was the poster image of this company, the appointed villain of this entire series, and Himiko _didn’t even realize it was her._

Do other people know? Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t, considering how little of a deal this was being made out to be. She barely looked like the Junko Enoshima that had been so heavily publicised, with her baggy, non-form fitting clothing, the constantly changing contact lenses and the chopped brown hair. That must be a part of this act she’s trying to pull; a constantly changing appearance keeps people confused and disheveled to her true identity. Her true identity of being a world destroyer. 

“What do we do? Do we tell somebody?” Himiko suggests.

They should, right? Himiko might not know the full extent of her killing game crimes, but she knows they are bad. She was the villain in every season, a bad guy in every sense. Surely this was something they should be sharing with people, especially considering the situation they found themselves in.

Oh, god. That only leads to more questions. Because Junko Enoshima would surely have some role to play in all of this, right?

Korekiyo pauses in a manner that tells the former mage he was thinking, his unblinking eyes locked onto hers. It’s moments like these that really remind Himiko of their outrageous height difference, of the way she has to crane her neck upwards rather awkwardly in the middle of this crowded lounge.

A few seconds pass by before Korekiyo raises his shoulders in a very hesitant shrug.

“Huh? Don’t--” The redhead mimics his shrug. “--me, this is the worst person on _earth_ we’re talking about.”

“I hardly think there is enough evidence to call her the worst person on _this_ earth…”

“Well-- Simulator. Worst person in the _simulator._ It still…” Her voice fades as she attempts to gather her thoughts, her brain moving much slower than it should. “...She still has that-- her _talent,_ right? Y-You said that she predicted hundreds of timelines, how is that--”

“Just because she had a powerful analytical skill does not mean it has been retained to its full extent in the real world. Talents very often are muted once they exit the simulator, and that would be especially prevalent considering the _inhumane_ measures her talent extended to,” He exhales through his teeth upon noticing Himiko was still confused. “Take Gonta, for example. That boy was able to lift an entire manhole cover by only using his thumb and forefinger. He would not be able to do that now. The simulator exaggerates these qualities--”

“So it must have exaggerated her talent… right, got it. But… she still said that she predicted all of those timelines when you overheard her… I’m just confused.”

And it was a good thing to be confused about. What was the reason for her to hide? Self-preservation? Does she know she’s in the wrong by being here? And why, above all people, had _Junko Enoshima_ chosen _Himiko,_ a tiny, physically scrawny, barely under five foot teenage girl, to confide in? Maybe that was exactly why: Because Himiko was weak and helpless. She latched onto the former mage so she could sit down at her lunch table, could blend in with her season and pretend that she’s close friends with the poor redhead, all so nobody suspected her of being out of place.

“No, you should be. She is quite the intriguing character…” Korekiyo looks around, maybe attempting to find a chair, or something to sit in. There is nothing around him. They have stopped in a rather awkward part of the lounge. “I… do very strongly believe that she recognized I was eavesdropping and was trying to scare me.” 

“Okay…” Himiko begins slowly listing what has been revealed, counting the revelations on her fingers. “Junko Enoshima. Undercover. Evil but not as smart--”

“Evil?” Korekiyo hums.

“Err-- Well, I guess… Right?” The redhead questions with a furrowed brow, her nose twitching. “She caused the end of the world, I think it makes a little sense to call her evil…”

“Well, yes, but we know nothing of her actions in the real world.”

“But we _do_ know about her actions in the _simulator._ I think it makes a little sense to… y’know… judge.”

His eyebrow raises in genuine curiosity, “So, you are suggesting we treat her as an enemy?”

Himiko’s face scrunches, her shoulders rising to her ears in uncertainty, “I-I don’t know, why is this so--?”

“I just want to know where you stand,” His eyes lock on Himiko’s and it’s becoming a little obvious that she’s perhaps said something wrong. “Do you view _everybody_ who was a villain in the simulation as evil in the real world?”

“This is--”

Ah. She realizes what she’s stepped into, now, a little too late. The boy who towered over her was waiting for a response patiently, not necessarily accusing or bitter about it, but rather curious. Himiko’s lips thin, noticing that she’s probably said something a little hurtful.

“...This is a trap,” Himiko says, pointing a finger at him. “This is what a ‘conversation trap’ is, right? You are trapping me with words!”

“I am. I find your behavior fascinating, if not slightly hypocritical,” He agrees. “Are you picking and choosing who is a ‘good’ person, or do you think the same of me as you do Sakine?”

It was a good question, and a rather complicated one, at that. Maybe, when she thinks about it, she _was_ picking and choosing who was ‘good’ in her eyes. It wasn’t just this minor incident with villainizing Junko, who was a terrible person in the simulator, while working alongside Korekiyo, who was a terrible person in the simulator. Himiko has done this before. She actively hangs out with Maki, who was an _assassin,_ with Kokichi, who caused nothing but absolute havoc and indirectly caused two people’s deaths. And then she has the nerve to ostracize Korekiyo, without shunning Maki or Kokichi for what they were prewritten to do? And now, after starting this weird pact thing with the former anthropologist and agreeing to work with him, she does the same thing with Junko?

Feeling tense towards Korekiyo instead of Maki or Kokichi was reasonable, right? He did terrible things in that killing game, terrible things that almost directly correlated to the redhead. It was justified to feel angry on Tenko’s behalf, on _Angie’s_ behalf. Maki might have been an assassin, but nothing she had done affected Himiko. Kokichi might have been an asshole, but everything he had done to her, specifically, was petty and not necessarily violent. If it were _Miu_ in Himiko’s position, then she would have a much harder time forgiving him and would be more inclined to grow close to people who didn’t hurt her directly. Feeling tense towards Korekiyo was… justified.

And, you know what? Feeling tense towards Junko was _plenty_ reasonable. This wasn’t just some tragic prewritten backstory like Maki was given, or a fictional, overly-villianous personality like Kokichi had. It wasn’t even close to the extent of what Korekiyo achieved, which is incredibly remarkable considering he murdered almost a hundred girls in that universe. Junko caused the end of the world. She did very, very horrible things.

But… that was _fictional,_ right? That was all fictional?

It was too much to think about and it all hurt Himiko’s head. She was in no position to be the judge and the jury of who was bad and good. All she could do was… hold trust in people. 

“No, no, you’re right. We don’t know what she's like in the real world...” Himiko agrees, if cautiously. “We just have to figure out what she’s up to… right? And then we can tell people if she’s up to something!”

Korekiyo’s face is unreadable behind his mask. His gaze hasn’t faltered from her own, his stance still rigid and his posture stiff. It was like he was analyzing her statement, trying to find meaning and hidden intention behind a phrase so little. 

“...Alright. That seems... fair,” He says finally. “But it will be hard to ‘figure out what she’s up to’, considering how suspicious she is of us.”

“We’ll just have to be sneakier… Like a mouse,” Himiko replies with a sly smile.

“Mice are not all that sneaky, actually. I had a family of them living in the walls of my hospital room, and they kept me awake for nights--”

“You get what I mean,” She dismisses. “We just have to be better at spying! Like the _Totally Spies_ girls!”

“...I have no clue what you are talking about, but I will assume that means we must be smarter.”

“Precisely, treeman,” Himiko nods with exaggerated authority, copying Junko’s nickname for him in a playful manner. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“...Are you sure this is a matter we should be focusing on? From the looks of it, she hasn’t caused much harm,” Korekiyo suggests timidly. “The count is still at forty people.”

That is true. Nobody has been hurt, yet. Today, at least. _Today._ Yesterday was a whole other, terrifyingly horrific ordeal that Himiko did not want to focus on. There’s certainly some serious issues that she should probably look into concerning the numbness that comes with seeing-- or, considering how the lights were off and she was buried in Gonta’s jacket, hearing-- death. It’s this chilly feeling of apathy that she absolutely despises thinking about. She shouldn’t be conditioned to feel this way.

“...I guess you’re right… But she’s our only ‘lead’, or whatever Shuichi would say,” Himiko refutes. “...Maybe I should find Shuichi, actually. Or at least let people know who she is.”

“It might make her a bit angry,” Korekiyo warns. “I can’t imagine she’d _want_ people knowing that she’s Junko Enoshima.”

“...For exactly this reason. She doesn’t want people freaking out,” Himiko completes. “Gotcha.”

He nods, satisfied with the conclusion of the conversation, and finally breaks his gaze away to analyze where they’ve ended up. The lounge is much more occupied, but the way that they’re standing in the center of it all made it rather awkward. He leans backwards, with every intent to simply turn around and leave. 

“I better get going… I have to ask Kaito how to play the guitar,” Himiko waves.

“Kaito knows how to play the guitar?”

The redhead shrugs, “Eh. Better than me, at least.”

The boy titters behind his teeth, slowly beginning his exit, “Well, good luck, anyways. I’ll see what I can observe about Sakine as I learn how to… play this sport I have signed up for.”

“Good luck with your sport,” Himiko wishes back.

They begin to split up, disappearing back into their separate crowds. Himiko takes perhaps five steps in the opposite direction, pauses, and then flips herself back around, shuffling back towards Korekiyo.

“Hey,” She calls before he’s completely gone. He turns to face her, one eyebrow raised. “I wasn’t… trying to call you evil with the whole Junko thing. It’s really confusing.”

“Oh, I wasn’t offended,” He replies dissmisively. 

“Okay… But I don’t think you’re, like, a _villain,_ or anything. That’s-- Yeah, that’s all I wanted to say.”

“No need to worry. I wouldn’t be offended if you _did_ feel that way,” He says, hands held up in a gesture free of ill-intent. “You’d be justified in thinking so.”

He doesn’t allow Himiko to ask for further clarification, instead leaving her with the sinking feeling that she’s missed another beat in the conversation. That she’s passed over something that might have been important to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 37/40


	26. (soy un perdedor) i'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> danganronpa theatre event 2: electric boogaloo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOO it's korekiyo's chapter, you know what that fucking means!!! it's trigger warning time!!!!!!!
> 
> tw for: thoughts of self-harm, thoughts of harming others (which includes thoughts of arson), korekiyo's sister being a creep (but nothing too sexual), Zeus
> 
> my man is going the fuck through it rn
> 
> edit: spelled zeus incorrectly >:(

**-=+ DANGANRONPA THEATRE EVENT +=-**

**_Arson and Anthropologists Do Not Mix!_ **

**Starring: Korekiyo Shinguji, Ryoma Hoshi (ft. Miyadera Shinguji)**

* * *

_He can still hear Her._

_Korekiyo reckons it’s a rather fitting punishment. He could recount story upon story of the burdened villain suffering great punishment at the hands of others, whether it be ostracization from their society or literal physical punishment. Being a-- Being_ prewritten _as an anthropologist, Korekiyo knew perhaps thousands of these tales, had them stuffed into his brain rather forcefully with no way of removal. The villains within these tales almost always had some form of karma that returned to penalize them, a cautionary tale for those who listen and read the stories._

_A great tale of punishment was the Greek myth of Prometheus, the story of a trickster god who was chained to a mountain for giving fire to the mortal realm. Vultures-- or eagles, depending on the adaptation-- were sent down by Zeus to peck out Prometheus’s livers. Prometheus, being a god, would slowly regenerate, only to suffer the exact same punishment the next day as the eagle once more swoops down to feed on his revived livers._

_Korekiyo finds bitter relatibility in that story. His body was reviving, he was sure of it. But every time he seems to be getting better, the eagle swoops back to feed once again._

(i love you, korekiyo. these living arrangements are really disappointing. i love you.)

_It was really great to hear from Her. Not in any literal sense, Korekiyo meant that purely in sarcasm. The concept of ‘Ultimate Real Fiction’ had to be explained to the former anthropologist, much sooner than any other participant, in fact, because this nagging voice in the back of his brain was hindering his recovery so overbearingly, so radically. They had caught him writing down her words erratically into his journal, had noticed him talking to himself as he stared at walls, at nothing. Multiple lines were crossed before they finally removed him from the recovery wing of the hospital and seperated him from his class. He reckons it was Rantaro who had tipped the nurses off about his plan to mix pesticide capsules, the kind they used to kill rats, in Kaede’s medication._

_The role that fiction had played in his life had to be explained out of necessity. The doctors were desperate for an answer, so they began flinging explanations at him with little to no regard of how it would affect him. He had tried, and failed, to reach the rest of his class with this information, but was promptly removed and relocated. He now slept in a tiny, solitary, pure white room, consisting of one mattress with no bed frame that he could throw his head into and a closet filled with drawstring-less hoodies. He hated it there. It was so lonely, yet much too crowded._

_She_ (you know my name) _is not real anymore. Well, She never was in the first place, but now instead of this disembodied voice attatched to him at all times, She was this distant echo, a mind trick. It’s as if his brain recognized the sudden void that had been created from the transition between the simulator and real life and filled it, tricked him into thinking She was still there when She clearly wasn’t. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t there._

_But the nagging was quite the intriguing punishment, he will hand his mind that. The eagle that swoops down to peck him alive was not, in fact, a physical being, but instead his own brain attacking him. His morals had returned upon the ‘Ultimate Real Fiction’ being explained and digested fully, the overwhelming, horrid disgust of his actions settling in not long after. Her words had turned into a sickening annoyance, so much so that it left a bitter taste in his mouth. There was, quite literally, no escape from Her._

(but why would you want me to leave? that hurts my feelings. you love me, korekiyo.)

 _Korekiyo has accepted that there was very little chance of recovery from where he stood, currently. He was never going to be admitted from this hospital and will be left here to rot, whether it be from old age after an agonizingly long life, or the eventually succumbing to his own morbid way of thinking. Did Prometheus ever think this way? Did he ever accept his fate of eternal pain and solitude_ (i am also so, so lonely, korekiyo) _, or did he continue to yank against his chains, despite the impossibilities that lay again of him? Korekiyo can’t imagine that it was all that hopeful of a situation. And all because he had given fire to humanity. What a waste. Prometheus should have let them freeze and die._

_Korekiyo isn’t in his room. He had been searching for silence which he will never find. The nurses were quite preoccupied with some Kokichi situation, undoubtedly wrangling him back after he attempted to leave the hospital again, so the former anthropologist had a bit more free reign. There was a tiny library that sat in between the two wings that Korekiyo and the rest of his class were stored in. It wasn’t anything to marvel at and only had one bookshelf that sat against the back wall, but the former anthropologist was still forbidden from entering it, anyways. Sharp corners everywhere. Pencils were also sharp. One of the nurses hid a tiny lighter behind a row of books for their smoke break._

_Korekiyo finds it easily._

_He flicks the lighter on. The former anthropologist is sitting with his knees under his chin, the silver lighter held up to his eyes so closely that he could feel the heat against his nose. It’s so incredibly close to his face. It’s so incredibly close to the curtain, which covers the window next to him. If he were to lean just a bit to the left, the entire hospital would go up in flames. Maybe that was easier. He just had to lean a little bit to the left._

(so many friends. it would be so easy.)

_“Hey.”_

_Korekiyo flicks the lighter off, but doesn’t move to turn towards the voice. It was so, very clearly Ryoma Hoshi. There’s no mistaking his easily recognizable, abnormally deep voice._

_“Been a while,” Ryoma says at the doorway, twirling a toothpick in his mouth. Korekiyo wasn’t allowed to have toothpicks. The former tennis player must have earned it from good behavior. “Mind if I join you?”_

(no no no no no, i do mind i do mind)

_Korekiyo gets distracted and doesn’t answer. The lighter flicks back on and his yellow eyes don’t leave it. To think that Prometheus had been tortured over something so tiny such as the flame in front of him. Rather unfair._

_Ryoma must have realized he wasn’t going to get an answer, because he enters the room, anyways, slowly closing the library door before any nurse passing by could see Korekiyo and immediately drag him away. The former tennis pro walks over the bookshelf, grabs a novel_ (smash his head in like you did with that angie girl. i don’t care who it is anymore), _and walks over to the back wall, sliding slowly down it. He exhales in a tiny sigh before he opens his book._

 _Korekiyo appreciated that Ryoma wasn’t talking to him, but at the same time couldn’t bear the overwhelming silence. It hurt to think, took so much willpower not to move in fear of sending the lighter haywire and hurting even more people. There’s something weighing him down, a fear and sadness_ (sadness? you’re happy. you should be happy) _that was so intense that he couldn’t bear to physically elaborate on it. He sits and listens to what his own conscience has to say, his entire body frozen even as Ryoma roams closer._

_The former tennis player actually didn’t seem to mind all that much that Korekiyo was in an area completely restricted to him, holding a lighter and staring rather ominously at the flame in total silence. Ryoma just sits there and reads. If he really did want to kick Korekiyo out, he would have ran and found a nurse, already._

_But Ryoma wasn’t completely ignorant, however, “You know… that’s pretty close to your face.”_

_Oh, wow. Korekiyo had barely even noticed. It wasn’t like that was the entire point. That, again, was sarcasm._

_The former anthropologist flicks the flame off. The room again returns to darkness. Korekiyo had been sitting in it long before the former tennis pro had gotten there, stumbling almost drunkenly to the floor and curling there. There’s a bit of a pause before Ryoma chuckles to himself, acknowledging that he hasn’t turned the lights on and that he’s now subjected himself to the pitch black of this room. His laugh sounded genuine, not sarcastic and rather self-detrimental like it had been in that simulator. If Korekiyo wasn’t so out of it, so concentrated on not tipping the lighter in his hands to the left and setting the hospital ablaze, he might have looked into it a little more._

_“Alright. I’m turning the lights on,” Ryoma narrates gently, pushing himself back up to his feet, “Is there a book I can grab you?”_

(he’s agile, that one. but you would still try it if you really loved me, korekiyo), _“...No.”_

_“Come on, there has to be something,” Ryoma says as he reaches the light switch. The lights flicker on and it’s so bright that it hurts Korekiyo’s eyes. The former anthropologist has to blink harshly, “Or are you not in the mood for reading?”_

_Reading should be good. Reading was distracting. But his brain was being much too loud, “...I don’t know.”_

_“Mind if I pick one out for you? I know some good ones you might like… I come here pretty often.”_

_Korekiyo flicks the light back on. The opposition in the back of his brain took the form of Her voice, sickeningly sweet yet remarkably bitter about the situation, demanding that he did something against Ryoma attempting to interact with him. The former anthropologist hated the way he thought. He was a terrible person, and an awful individual to think that way. That’s what he thought, that’s what She thought, that’s what the majority of his class_ and _the majority of Japan thought. Everybody had an opinion about him, and none of it seemed positive._

_The former anthropologist doesn’t give Ryoma an answer, but the former tennis pro decides for him. The smaller teenager has already made it to the bookshelf again, silently gliding his finger over the spines of the books with his lips pursed in indecision. Korekiyo flicks the lighter on and off again before Ryoma finally settles on a fairly hefty novel with a crimson binding, turning the book in his hands before he extends it towards the former anthropologist._

_“Here, kid, I’ll trade you,” He says._

_Ah. That’s what this is. An attempt to remove the lighter from Korekiyo’s hands._

_Korekiyo_ wants _to hand it over_ (no you don’t) _but the lighter seems to be glued in his hands. He has this terrible feeling that if were to move from where he was seated, he would end up_ (throw the flame at the curtain. throw it at ryoma, his clothes are flammable. throw it at your eye) _doing something bad. The more he thinks about extending his arm towards Ryoma_ (don’t do it. i’m asking you kindly, korekiyo) _the more She seemed to grow louder and it hurt because it was fair. She wasn’t even_ ** _real_** _anymore but his mind still tried to attack him._ _It was fair, fair for him to suffer for his crimes, fair that his brain was punishing him like this, and that made everything worse._

 _He passes_ (don’t) _the lighter over_ (throw it at him) _to Ryoma. The former tennis pro gently hands him a non-fiction novel_ (i thought you loved me?) _with a tired grin._

_“Akagi really needs to find a better hiding spot for this,” Ryoma snickers sarcastically, tossing the lighter in his hands casually._

_The former anthropologist was still staring forward, glaring at where the lighter had been. His limbs feel remarkably stiff, his whole body tired and freakishly still. Ryoma must be thinking that Korekiyo was creepy, or at least abnormal in the way he was just sitting there, ominously, only answering in vague and indescriptive phrases. But Ryoma’s reaction was much more muted in comparison to what could have happened if he had been replaced by somebody like Tenko, who would probably attack him again, or Kaito, who would sigh and walk away to grab the attention of every nurse in the wing, therefore landing Korekiyo in confinement for another two weeks._

_“You… come here often…?” The former anthropologist slurs slowly. It’s so obvious that he hasn’t talked to people his age for months now._

_“It’s quiet, here. The rest of the class can get pretty loud,” The smaller teen answers, sitting back against the wall and reopening his book_ (don’t get too close) _. “Sorry if I’m intruding on… whatever you’re doing. Didn’t mean to be a bother.”_

_“...No, you’re not.”_

_It’s a little weird that Ryoma was comfortable enough to sit with the former anthropologist. Korekiyo would have expected the smaller teen to have left already._

_Korekiyo very, very slowly opens the book, but his gaze is so blurred and his brain is so clouded that he ends up staring at the first page, his eyes glossing over the lines and picking up absolutely nothing. Ryoma looked only half-interested in his novel, dark eyes staring down and the toothpick still twirling in between his teeth. There was definitely a good reason why he was in this part of the wing: it’s most certainly the quiet amidst the absolute calamity of the rest of the class. Everybody had woken up from the simulator… a month ago, now? And the booming noise that they brought with them was so loud that even Korekiyo was able to hear them from where he was stationed, in a whole other wing of the hospital._

_Too much noise is no good. Everything happens at once and his brain, to compensate for how loud everything has become, starts screaming at him, shrieking in his ears_ (LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN) _until it’s all he can hear. In a room filled with the entire class, that was not good. There were reasons why he very rarely went to see them. Quiet was better. Not amazing, considering how he was still left with Her, but better._

_But sometimes silence just, to put it in the words of Miu Iruma, “sucks ass”. It wasn’t Korekiyo’s right to continue the conversation, however. If Ryoma wanted it to die out, then it should die--_

_“How are things on your side of the hospital? Are they treating you alright, there?” It was Ryoma who made the next comment, probably noticing how Korekiyo hasn’t turned the first page yet despite the amount of time that had passed._

_“It is fine,” Korekiyo responds with measured phrasing. “How are… things over there?”_

_Ryoma exhales through his nose in laughter. He’s been here for quite a long time, now, considering how early in the killing game his death was. The hospital took a little time to get used to, but once youve been there for a while it grows on you. The former tennis player was practically a local here, having been to every wing. Including Korekiyo’s own wing, at one point before the former anthropologist had awoken from the simulator._

_“Everybody’s still getting used to being here. You can’t blame them for it, though, it’s been a rough transition for a lot of people,” Ryoma says solemnly._

_“Was it… a rough transition for_ you?” 

_Korekiyo had been incredibly privileged, almost, to have learned the reality of his character in a closed environment, told by trained nurses that he wasn’t real in a manner that was somewhat organized, if still emotionally devastating._

_The_ rest _of the class had been told in perhaps the worst manner possible: through the livestreams of Danganronpa. Nobody in the hospital had any idea what that final trial was about to reveal, had no clue what information was about to be dropped, so the rest of Korekiyo’s class had sat in that day room and watched the Danganronpa live streams without a clue. They had been so worried for their friends, so anxious to make sure they were okay. They had all sat there, in front of the television, just to make sure their class was okay. Korekiyo had been allowed to enter and watch with them if he promised to behave, which he had done so politely. They had been so hopeful. They had been so, so naive._

_Korekiyo knew much more than they did, but was not allowed to tell them. So when it was dropped, in real time, that they were not real people and only fictional versions of themselves, Korekiyo had to sit there and watch them all crumble and wail. The nurses, who were not expecting that information to be revealed so suddenly, scrambled to repair the damage and restrain the class from sprinting. Korekiyo was escorted out of the day room. He could still hear them screaming as he reached his room._

_“Heh. I think… I’ve actually handled it a lot better than most,” Ryoma answers. “It’s not great... but it wasn’t as if I had much to lose in the first place. That’s what I’ve been telling myself, anyways.”_

_Ryoma hadn’t been as overwhelmingly mortified at the reveal as the majority of his class had been. The former tennis player had been leaning against the left wall in the day room, opposite of Korekiyo, his arms folded against his chest. It was fascinating to think about the seperate mindsets of the class, the different prewritten personalities and how they react to be told their entire existence was falsified. Ryoma, somebody who already had, as stated himself,_ nothing to live for, _certainly had a much different reaction to the problem at hand. It was more about the family he had so cruelly been prewritten to mourn, despite them never existing in the first place. Korekiyo could almost relate_ (nobody understands us) _, if he really grasped for something to empathize with._

_“Of course. I could see… how that affects your mindset,” The former anthropologist replies rather vaguely. His voice still sounds hoarse and his words sound almost jumbled, still incredibly slow. “I presume Maki Harukawa shares a similar point of view.”_

_“She’s pretty pissed, actually. I mean, all of that trauma, and for absolutely nothing.”_

_“...Do you not feel the same way?”_

_Ryoma laughs internally, his shoulders bobbing in a brief, dark chuckle, “I did. But I realized that it was pointless to get angry over something so unfair. There’s not much I can do about it, now.”_

_That was… one way to think about it, for sure. Admit that it was unfair and give up on being bitter. Korekiyo had given up on being angry at Danganronpa and has now directed all of that anger back at himself, boomeranging his distaste for the company towards his own character._

_“How about you?”_

_“Hm?” Korekiyo hums, his mind having drifted away for a moment. He realizes what had been asked of him and very quickly tenses up again. He doesn’t deserve to rant about his problems, “Oh, me? I’m fine. How are things over at your side?”_

(you’ve already asked that, korekiyo. your brain is broken.)

_“It’s moving slowly. I actually got to… chat with my family the other day,” Ryoma continues, a tiny smile curling up his lips. “My real family. It was… nice, almost. A little weird, but that couldn’t exactly be helped.”_

_“I’m glad. Were they nice?” Korekiyo continues. This conversation was good. Slow and a little awkward, but distracting._

_“Real nice. Single mom and a brother. Have you talked to your family?”_

(yes yes you have), _“N-No. No, not my real one, yet. I haven’t… heard from them.”_

_“Tch. Some people are real jerks. Sorry.”_

_“No, no need for apologies. I don’t blame them,” Korekiyo says, voice hollow. “I wouldn’t want to maintain contact with me, either.”_

_It made sense that Korekiyo’s real family hasn’t reached out yet, considering how the third trial of Season 53 was one of the most apalling trials of the series. What, with the sudden incest_ (what do you mean?) _twist and the flimsy_ (our love isn’t flimsy.) _motive for murder? Nobody wants to be associated with that._

_Ryoma looks off, his eyes shifting to the side. There’s something very familiar in Korekiyo’s self-deprecation, “Hey, was there a reason for that lighter?”_

_Oh, yes, there were reasons. Korekiyo couldn’t say any of them out loud, truthfully, without landing himself in isolation again, “...No. Only looking.”_

_“...Fair enough,” The former tennis player nods hesitantly, his attempt at getting answers returning fruitless._

_“I was only reminded of a myth, that’s all,” That was a lie, of course, on Korekiyo’s behalf, in order to convince Ryoma that he was mentally stable and not somebody he should be scared of. The former anthropologist had no way of telling just how convincing it actually was._

_“Myth? Which one?”_

_Ryoma folds the corner of the page he was on, closing his novel as he adjusts himself towards the hunched-over teenager. He looked genuinely interested. Korekiyo can’t remember the last time one of his classmates was actually_ invested _in what he had to say_ (i’m always invested, they just don’t understand us) _. Of course, he couldn’t blame any of them, and a few of them were nice-ish out of sheer necessity to be polite, but it was sort of… nice._

 _And so, Korekiyo ends up explaining Prometheus, the story of how the god had brought fire to the rather undeserving mortals below. The words fall out of his mouth very easily, and he doesn’t find himself pausing guiltily to remind himself of who he was or freezing entirely at a sudden thought_ (listen listen listen) _or abrupt impulse. He explains Prometheus’s punishment from the King of Gods, recieving a sharp inhale through the teeth from Ryoma, who nods along intently. The former tennis pro looked tired, they both did, but he was trying his hardest to react accordingly. Ryoma opens and closes the lighter, creating an unconscious accompaniment to the tale._

_The story works. Both in distracting Ryoma from the possibly darker explanation behind the lighter, and in distracting Korekiyo from… whatever She was trying to get him to do._

_Eventually Korekiyo’s legs lower so that his knees were no longer tucked underneath his chin, slowly raising his shoulders so he doesn’t look as unnapproachable and hunched. Ryoma continues to sit against the wall, drumming casually against the hardcover of his novel, biting down on his toothpick._

_“Well_ that _doesn’t seem very fair,” Is all he has to say as Korekiyo timidly finishes the story._

 _“This is Zeus we are referring to. I’m afraid_ ‘fair’ _isn’t necessarily in his vocabulary.”_

_“All because of fire, huh?”_

_“All because of fire.”_

_“Interesting,” Ryoma hums, reopening his novel to the page he had left it on. “You must know a ton of stories, with your talent, and everything. I didn’t get to talk to you much about anthropology in the simulator.”_

_“...As I did not speak to you about tennis. Although, I had heard that you didn’t enjoy your talent.”_

_“I didn’t. Nice catch,” The smaller teen lightly jokes, as if the rejection of his talent hadn’t been a major plot point for him. “But, hey, who knows? Maybe I’ll actually play it, now that I know that it didn’t directly lead to the death of every person close to me.”_

_Korekiyo ends up exhaling through his nose, humored, before he very quickly stifles it. Ryoma couldn’t catch the very tiny smile he had flashed behind his mask, before immediately returning to his neutral state._

_“You seem…” There was no way the former anthropologist could say this without sounding a little judgemental. His eyes narrow in a slight cringe. “...A lot more talkative. Than you were in the killing game, at least.”_

_Ryoma’s lips curl upwards again in another tiny smile, “Is that a bad thing?”_

(idiot), _“No-- No, I hadn’t meant--”_

_“I’m kidding. I get what you mean,” The former tennis pro assures. “My counselor says it’s, uh… good to talk to people. And I haven’t heard from you in a while, just figured I’d ask a few questions.”_

_If Korekiyo were in Ryoma’s position, the former anthropologist would be the_ last _person he’d want to talk to. Trying to speak to Korekiyo in this joyless, almost vacant state that he found himself in was almost just as useless as Ryoma hypothetically starting an animated conversation with that plastic plant in the corner._

_“I don’t think you should be wasting much time on me,” Korekiyo voices._

_Ryoma chuckles._

_It was an abrupt reaction to a fairly depressing statement, a rather weird response_ (see, korekiyo? only i care about you) _to something quite dark. Korekiyo finds himself shrinking even more against the shelf behind him._

_“Sorry,” Ryoma apologizes, waving a hand in regret while a smile still remains plastered on his face. “Sorry. That just sounded so… familiar. It was uncanny.”_

_“Fa--” Korekiyo barely lets a vowel escape his mouth before he answers his own unspoken question. That phrase was almost an exact recreation of the Ultimate Tennis Pro’s dialogue, to the point where the similarities seemed almost comical. “Oh.”_

_Ryoma nods slowly, as if he was very unhurriedly realizing the extent of the anthropologist’s perspective. Korekiyo does not enjoy being sympathized with. He just doesn’t feel as if he deserves it. He, a mass murderer with a disgusting backstory and a mortifying motive, doesn’t deserve sympathy. It felt fair to be exiled, right? It felt fair to be removed from the class? The punishment fits the crime._

_“Are you ever going to come join us for lunch? Breakfast, even? I know they give you the option to do so, I was_ in _that wing for a bit,” Ryoma offers._

_It almost felt like he was trying to further grasp just how far Korekiyo would go to isolate himself. He already knows what the former anthropologist is going to say, “No. No, I… don’t think I will.”_

_Ryoma hums in slight disappointment, flicking the lighter open before clicking it closed._

_Korekiyo finally turns his attention towards the novel he was supposed to be reading. His vision is much more clear now, his focus returning to him once more as he finally centers in on the text. Things are quiet, now. She is distant, a foggy memory. She’ll come back at full force later,_ (i’m always here for you, korekiyo) _, she always does, but for now she’s quitened in a way that Korekiyo could focus on the conversation in front of him._

_“Y’know, Prometheus was freed from that mountain eventually,” Ryoma says. His focus was entirely on the lighter in front of him. “The punishment was harsh, but he was let off, eventually. What happened to him, do you--? Well, you must know. You’re the anthropologist.”_

_“...I do. The hero Herakles released him, and in many adaptations shot the eagle to its death.”_

_“Cool. A happy ending, after all,” He flicks the lighter on, and the flame emerges once more. It’s hypnotizing for both of them. “Do you believe in happy endings?”_

_What an edgy question. Korekiyo blinks, “...Do you?”_

_Korekiyo is beginning to notice a pattern of boomeranging the question directly back at Ryoma, frightened of giving the ‘wrong’ answer or saying something that would worry the former tennis player. No wonder why the smaller teen seemed more ‘talkative’, he was the_ only one talking. _Idiot._

 _“Didn’t used to, that’s for sure. And I can’t say I…_ really _believe in them, now,” Ryoma answers truthfully, “I thought that the choices I made in my past had already laid the foundation for my future. And I’d be lying if I still didn’t… feel incredibly awful about doing all those things--”_

_“All of those you were prewritten to do,” Korekiyo interjects gently._

_Ryoma looks over cheekily, sparing a glance that told Korekiyo he had just fallen into some kind of conversation trap, “Exactly. I was kicking myself for something I was prewritten to do. I thought there was no way out of this hole I had dug myself into. There were no ‘happy endings’ in my eyes, because I thought that_ was _my ending.”_

_“...So, what’s different?” The former anthropologist asks, already taking a guess at where this whole ‘having hope’ spiel was going to end up._

_Ryoma shrugs, a gesture that Korekiyo was not expecting. The taller boy was assuming that he had an answer. Maybe neither of them did._

_“I’m not going to lie to you, it’s still a work in progress,” The former tennis pro chuckles, flicking the lighter closed. “And it’s probably going to be for a long time. It might not be a ‘happy ending’, but it’s a better ending, at least. I just have to work on… not kicking myself back into a hole. You get what I’m saying, kid?”_

Not kicking yourself back into a hole. _What a simplistic, rather idealistic goal for Korekiyo to achieve. It was hard not to kick himself back into a hole when he’s already sitting, curled up in a ball and rocking back and forth, in a metaphorical hole already. Similar to Prometheus, he is chained there, left to suffer and rot. Korekiyo does not get what he’s saying._

_Ryoma gestures with the lighter before tucking it into the pocket of his stringless hoodie, “Might keep Prometheus’s gift a little longer.”_

_“Keep it,” Korekiyo insists. It’s better for him. He doesn’t need the lighter, anymore._

_The tennis pro smiles, genuinely, turning back to his novel with a content sigh. Korekiyo can barely remember the last time he saw Ryoma this smiley. The former tennis player was not happy with himself, that was clear from their conversation, but he was still_ happier _than he was. It was so unfamiliar, so unlike the tennis pro that the former anthropologist had become so accustomed to in the simulator. They sit together, comfortable with each other’s company, just reading._

_It’s quiet. Not happy, but quiet._

_“...It did take Herakles_ multiple generations _to free Prometheus,” Korekiyo says, continuing this discreet metaphor that attached similarities from the Greek myth to their own lives._

_Ryoma shrugs again, twirling the toothpick once more in his mouth, “He got there eventually.”_

_“Herakles also doesn’t exist. He isn’t real.”_

_“I know, kid._ She _isn’t either.”_

_The discussion dies. Korekiyo knows who he had meant, and the conversation fades until the both of them are sitting in silence, books in their laps, reading the novels in front of them._

_It’s nice. Korekiyo allows himself to feel content. The guilt seems to dim, even if just for a slight while. He kinda likes this feeling. He’s very,_ very _slowly making progress._

_If Herakles doesn’t exist in another person, then he’ll just have to… be his own hero, or at least follow one of those corny messages that the storytales like to preach. Korekiyo reckons that he might like moving forward, but his body still feels immensely heavy, weighed down to the floor until he’s stuck there, motionless._

_The quiet was nice, however. He could make progress in his own time._

(it won’t last long, my love)


	27. sunrise is the only thing that's sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> good morning to all, time to start day three!

_Miu’s dream is a little different this time around._

_The nightmare began as usual: She was placed on top of a scaffold, unable to move from her position or turn around no matter how hard she tried. The crowd that assembled around her had formed a few familiar faces; If Miu were to squint she was able to find a few members of the killing game’s student council on the left, along with a dazed Rantaro and a disappointed Kaede over to the right. A few new faces made an appearance deep within the horde, including some members from the enforcement crew and Makoto, who stood with his arms crossed and his smile wide. Himiko was another new face in this dream, rubbing at her injured back with a pained and enraged grimace._

_Kokichi still stood in front of Miu, just far away enough that the former inventor couldn’t kick him if she tried. And she’s tried. Multiple times._

_There’s something in Miu’s hand this time around, which was the first very noticeable difference from this seemingly unoriginal recurring nightmare. It was this unconfirmed, dark grey object, one that was sifting and morphing in her right hand. It couldn’t settle on a definite shape, almost as if it was this dark fog that found itself conjugating around her fingers. Usually Miu had nothing to defend herself with in this nightmare, sans the rare exception where she would be given a hammer. She’s tried throwing that hammer at Kokichi, the crowd, and even herself a few times, but it never seems to get that far. The tool was just another massive ‘fuck you’ that proved itself useless._

_But this was different. It wasn’t anything she could identify, a very vague outline of something in her right hand, but it was still different. She still felt the weight of it against her palm._

_“...Or are you here to kill me?” Kokichi says suddenly._

_It’s the second thing that was off about this nightmare of hers. Kokichi never talked, or at least never made any audible noise whenever his mouth opened. But now he was speaking, starting abruptly, as if he had been talking with her the entire time. The sentence he starts on sounded as if Miu had caught him mid-conversation._

_“S-So… you figured it out,” Now her own mouth was moving, the words falling out unconsciously and without thought. She wasn’t trying to say these things. Her phrases are warbled, voice high with nerves. Her hands begin to shake. Just like they did in the simulator. “But there’s nothing you can do. You… can’t resist me. I made sure of it when I programmed your settings.”_

_Her words aren’t inappropriate, not crude or vulgar like they always were. They had written her final moments without innuendo or sexual humor, and it made everything so much worse. She seemed so lifeless, so overpowered by fear._

_The audience surrounding her murmur and grumble amongst themselves, as if she had said something wrong. Kaede was shaking her head already. Miu’s entire body was vibrating uncontrollably, and for no reason. She knew what was going to happen at the end of this nightmare. Even if a few things had changed, like this unidentifiable object in her hand or the suddenly audible dialogue between herself and Kokichi, it was going to end up the exact same. She had this nightmare every time she shut her eyes, and still found herself shaking in dread._

_“Uh-ohhhh! Guess I’m in trouble now!” Kokichi quips, a snarky smile rising up his cheeks. The audience behind him giggle, providing the supreme leader with his very own laugh-track._

_“I-I’m sorry, but… you should just give up. This is… my only chance,” Miu begins to explain, the words leaving her mouth without permission. Her eyebrows knit in remorse for a murder attempt she never gets to complete. “I have no choice but to do this… my inventions will change the world… they’ll make the world a better place!”_

_She looks down at the object in her hand. It still hasn’t formed, yet. Miu was involuntarily living out her death, and she hasn’t even been given the hammer. Her arms are trembling, knowing what was about to happen. The audience around her waits with bated breath, greedily leaning forward. They know what is about to happen, as well._

_“It’s my duty as a genius inventor!” Miu cries, clutching on to the ambiguous item in her hand and holding it to her beating heart. She doesn’t want to look, but her eyes are forced open against her will. “S-So, I can’t afford to die here--"_

_She fucking hates this part. It always hurts. Miu isn’t sure how it’s even possible to get hurt in a dream, but the strangulation always seems to last for centuries, her lungs desperately grasping for more air even when she_ knows _she isn’t going to make it. She claws at the invisible garrote around her neck, kicking and gargling, but it never ends up working. Kokichi, who was just audible, was once again silent as he stared forward, that same,_ evil _smile plastered across his face._

_“S-Sorry…! Gonta so sorry…!”_

_That was new, too. Gonta never apologized in her nightmares. It was usually completely silent until she eventually succumbed to this dream death and woke up screaming. But now it was tense, the atmosphere embarrassingly contrite, as Miu hisses the last breath from her lungs._

_-=+=-_

Well, now she just feels like shit. Thanks, dream.

Miu wakes up abruptly, sharply gasping as her hands shoot straight to her neck. She ends up wacking herself in the throat, and has to manage both her accelerated breathing as well as a sudden coughing fit. Kaede was still sleeping, if uneasily, and Miu didn’t want to be the one to wake her up from what was probably the best sleep the former pianist would receive in this hotel.

The former inventor had fallen asleep at her hotel desk, had collapsed sometime in the middle of the night on her laptop. It’s early in the morning now, 4 AM, meaning that she’s only gotten about three hours of sleep from that experience. Her neck was sore from the awkward angle that she had slept in, a line of drool running from the corner of her lip and onto her right arm. The document she had opened on her computer now had a long line of, ‘ffffffffffffffffffffffffffff’, from where her finger had been placed accidentally on her keyboard. 

Her head hurts. Her entire body feels icky. 

Miu grumbles at nothing in particular, and inelegantly wipes away the drool from her chin. With a quick check behind her that Kaede was still sleeping, she slaps at her face to wake herself up fully before clicking on K1-B0’s program.

“Good morning, sleephead!” K1-B0 immediately greets. Their AI has been updated from Chihiro’s additional coding, including a new, non-pixelated interface that was cropped from the shoulders up. K1-B0 also has this new ability to walk off the screen, and they’ve started doing it whenever Miu makes an uncomfortable joke. “Did I use that phrase correctly?”

“Y’know, with all of the new phrases I’ve been teaching ya, I never thought _sleepyhead_ would be the one you get wrong,” Miu whispers, checking over her shoulder. Kaede was stirring, but didn’t seem too bothered by the strawberry blonde’s antics.

“Hey, I-I am still learning! Please be patient with me!” They say defensively. “Also, it is 4:21 AM.”

“...Yes. Good on you for reading the fuckin’ clock.”

Their synthetic eyebrows furrow, “Did you just wake up? Or have you been awake this entire time?”

“Just woke up,” She answers.

“That’s…. Better, I guess…”

Miu thinks that she shrugs, but she’s so tired and out of it that it might not have even happened, “Anything new?”

K1-B0 brightens slightly, their expression gentle as they attempt to convey the information as comprehensively as possible to the disheveled strawberry blonde, “The breaker system you’ve created has a predicted 34.7 percent chance of working, at least against the weaker locks. If I received more data on the individual locks themselves, the percentage might be a little higher!”

“Great, then I’ll have to fuckin’…” She rests her forehead against her hand, sighing deeply. “Make a lock reader prototype?”

“Most likely,” The former robot replies apologetically. “But I’m sure Chihiro could help!”

Miu’s nose twitches, “I haven’t seen or heard from that dorky pleb in forever.”

“Oh… well, you were talking about a new team, just a little bit ago--”

“All of them are pieces of hunky junk.”

K1-B0’s face contorts slightly in confusion. Clearly Miu’s complete misuse of the phrase “hunk of junk” has left them a bit befuddled. But now that she thinks about it, Kazuichi _might_ be a little useful, at least more than the others, anyways. That being said, he’s only useful when he isn’t jittery and jumpy all the time. Considering the circumstances, it seems like a bit of a long ask. She isn’t sure how much she can trust Chihiro where she stands currently, but that being said, Miu really _hasn’t_ seen or heard from him in a while. It’s like he dumped all of the technology on her shoulders and fucked off to who knows where.

“B-But I guess… Kazuichi isn’t _totally_ useless…” The former inventor begrudgingly admits out loud.

K1-B0 brightens once more, “Yes, he can help! And you should ask him for that help! Please be aware that if I had a physical body, I would be giving you a supportive pat on the back!”

They compensate from the physical gesture with a timid thumbs up. Miu can’t help but yawn, stretching her arms upwards before scratching at her inner thigh inelegantly. Kaede shifts uncomfortably in her sleep, her face scrunched, but again does not wake up. The lack of a second, _conscious_ physical being made the room feel awfully vacant and dark. 

“Sorry about the, uh, lack of development on your hot bod, Keebs,” Miu apologizes groggily. “But I really… _was_ working hard on it, and I had a surprise for you after this whole convention thing blew over--”

“A surprise?” K1-B0 asks, tilting their head to the side.

Miu’s face contorts, “W-Well, it wouldn’t be a surprise if I fuckin’ _told you,_ now would it, Kee-bitch!?”

“Wh-- Please do not yell at me…!”

“But it will have to wait! The surprise ain’t gonna work without my giant brain behind it!” The former inventor says, whispering as loudly as she could. “And boobs! Which are also giant, may I add!”

K1-B0 flusters, “Well, the most important thing right now is making sure you are safe! A-Also, that comment about your body parts was completely unnecessary--!”

“It’s all a part of my natural charm! Pretty _and_ funny! I am the _epitome_ of a fuckin’ woman!!!” There’s something very sarcastic hidden behind that statement, a sense of bitterness towards this ‘natural charm’ she was referring to. ”And I _am_ making sure that I’m-- _we’re_ safe. Me, Bakamatsu, and Rantaro… wherever he is. B-But don’t think I forgot about that surprise, because I will definitely have it ready after the convention! Err-- Maybe not straight after… G-Give me like… another week, maybe!!”

“I’m flattered that you are this concerned about my surprise, Miu. But I think there are more pressing matters at hand. I wouldn’t want your focus being led astray by me!”

Good point. It hadn’t been too diverted by K1-B0’s physical prototype in the first place, considering that it wasn’t at the hotel they were staying in, but there still wasn’t much that she could do about it now. Unless she gets out of here, that prototype will just… sit there and rot, she supposes. Until somebody else with a brain like hers finds it and connects the dots.

She… hadn’t thought about that before. Everything was so motivated by the past and the present; she had to do things _now,_ she had to be protected _now_ so that the things that had happened _then_ wouldn’t happen again. Miu had barely even thought about what would happen to the world, to the people around her, even, if she wasn’t there in the future. That had been a huge issue in the simulator-- in fact, the outside world was one of the main motives for her murder attempt. Her motives now seemed a lot more...self-driven. More concerned about her own safety, and, as Kokichi would put it, “more selfish and egotistical”.

No, they’re not. They’re _not._ It’s the stupid nightmare that’s lead her down this rabbithole of self-loathing again. She’s tired and grumpy and emotional and definitely _not_ about to start crying because that would be embarrassing. It’s all thanks to the nightmare-- that, plus the conversation she had just had with Kaede before they both passed out from exhaustion, probably. Miu had to tell her all about the enforcement team, leading Kaede to tell her that it didn’t seem safe and that she was the only one their age in that squad, which _then_ led Miu to get defensive like she always does and start yelling about protection and how nobody in her class really likes her, which led _Kaede_ to refute that people _did._ Miu asks her to list an example, not including the blonde or Rantaro, and the former pianist falls inconveniently short. The conversation was dropped and the two separated for the day. Miu did not show up to dinner.

And she felt fucking awful about it all the next morning. The pair hadn’t been _arguing_ so to say, and Miu hadn’t name-called or been overly bitchy like she usually was during heated discussion, but the former inventor still felt… bad. Guilty, maybe, about causing so much trouble. Tired, perhaps? Maybe feeling awful was justified, in this environment? Bleh. BLEEHH. Feelings are awful.

“I believe that is a solid game plan for today! And also, maybe get some breakfast,” K1-B0 suggests.

 _“You_ get some breakfast, you crusty lookin’.......” Miu mumbles defensively, closing in on herself pettily. 

“If you go to breakfast, you can ask about the camera model,” K1-B0 reasons. “Weren’t you curious about that?”

The camera model was another question that Miu would like answered, but she won’t be the one to return to the Black Rose Ballroom to check them out. There were a few similar models scattered about the hotel, but the last time somebody tried to analyze them they got shot in the fucking forehead. So. 

“Fuckin’ _pass,”_ She says. “I’ll find him later. I just don’t… want to go.”

K1-B0 opens their mouth to say something, but is interrupted by a sudden intake of air from the stirring Kaede. She’s up now, at the usual time she wakes up, her right hand also grabbing for her neck before she sighs, heavily. Kaede doesn’t seem too frightened by her nightmare anymore, only exasperated as she stares upwards at the ceiling.

“Think about it, please?” K1-B0 whispers, before they disappear from the screen.

Miu exhales. It’s still dark outside, and the sudden absence of the brightness from her laptop screen plunged the hotel room back into a state so dark that she had to wait a few seconds for her eyes to adjust. 

Day three. It didn’t feel like two days had passed. It felt like centuries that she’s been stuck here.

She should start the day, but everything about her feels groggy. There are things to do, plans that race through her mind, but she still finds herself standing up wearily, stumbling over towards the side of the bed and collapsing over Kaede. It’s a nonverbal gesture of peace.

Kaede returns a watery laugh, removing her hand from her throat to place both arms on Miu in a deconstructed hug. The pair end up belly-chuckling until they eventually get up to get dressed for the day.

-=+=-

Miu has been deciding which table she should sit at for a solid two minutes, now. It feels like she’s in the middle of a corny high school chickflick.

She stands at the buffet table with a full plate clutched in her hands. A lot more people have shown up this morning, scattered across tables and chattering at full volume. Makoto was not there today, and many Future Foundations sat at tables like the rest of them did. The majority of the participants were sitting in their assigned chairs, but a few were feeling particularly bold and sitting with their friends instead of with their class like the troublemakers they were.

Miu’s class was to the left. They all sat together, actually _laughing_ with each other, practically all of them having shown up for breakfast that morning. Rantaro was sitting tiredly next to Ryoma, Tenko and Himiko were being all lovey dovey and gross, Korekiyo was writing in his journal and being all creepy, as usual. Kaede had, of course, insisted that Miu show up as well, and the former inventor was feeling _really_ guilty and awful that morning so she followed along to make Kaede feel a little better. But now that she was actually here, staring at her season from afar, she just couldn’t but feel rather isolated. As if she was a completely separate entity to her own class. They were a group, and she was just Miu. Shit, there _had_ to be other people who felt that way in that class, but it wasn’t like she was close enough to know who.

Kaede turns around from a conversation with Shuichi and notices Miu standing awkwardly, almost as if the former inventor was waiting for permission. She smiles and waves her over.

Kokichi, who was sitting next to Shuichi and Himiko, notices the gesture and turns to Miu also. There’s a brief moment where his gaze flickers towards the former mage’s back, presumably at the injury the strawberry blonde was responsible for, before he turns back to Miu with a much darker smile. He mimics Kaede’s wave, slowly and more noticeably menacing. He was challenging her, almost. As if beckoning to come join them, just so he can rip her into shreds about shoving Himiko.

Miu’s face hardens. Her plate was beginning to shake with how hard she was gripping it.

“Hey, Miu?”

The former inventor turns towards Sayaka’s voice. She’s sitting at a table on the right side of the dining hall, surrounded by many members of the enforcement team. They are the only table without the majority of people being from the same class. Fuyuhiko and Mondo were arguing over what seemed to be the last bread roll, with a diligent Peko watching with her arms crossed. Kiyotaka sits with his face scrunched in concern, a bandage clearly wrapped around his arm from the previous day. Kazuichi was trying to strike a conversation with a new girl with jet black, bobbed hair, and Akane was staring rather intently at the table cloth in front of her.

Sayaka pulls out the empty chair between herself and Akane, her face softened in knowing concern, “Do you want to join us?”

Miu exhales in what she could only assume was relief. Yes, she would very much prefer to sit there than with her class, with the former supreme leader who would undoubtedly start another argument. He’s been waiting to pull more ‘Speak My Truth’s out of his ass ever since that morning where Miu hurt Himiko, has been waiting to start another fight with her but just couldn’t find where she had gone. Miu was way too tired, and as much as she wanted the confrontation, Kaede would not appreciate them starting a scene in the middle of a crowded dining hall. 

The former inventor spares one passing glance at her class before shuffling hurriedly towards the empty chair, plopping herself down with a brief wave to the rest of the team. 

“You seemed a little uncertain, so I thought I might offer,” The pop sensation whispers when she joins the table.

Miu blinks in confusion, before she realizes, “Intuition. Right. U-Uh, thanks.”

Sayaka winks at her, flashing her a soft smile as the rest of the table continue their general antics. Fuyuhiko and Mondo still haven’t come to a mutual agreement about who will get the last breakfast item. Kazuichi has yet to get a reaction from the new girl, whose nametag is now much more visible to Miu and has the name ‘Mukuro Ikusaba’ printed on it. She isn’t somebody Miu recognized, not even within their time at the convention. The soldier’s identity was further concealed with the black face mask over her nose, mixed with the fact that she was barely making eye contact with anybody.

The majority of Miu’s class was still staring at her. She can feel their gazes against her back. Obviously many of them were curious to know who she was talking to, wanted to know what she was doing and how she knew these people.

“Don’t turn around now,” Miu mumbles, “But half of my class is giving me the fuckin’ death stare.”

Almost comically, Akane immediately flips her entire body around to return the eye-contact with Miu’s prying class. The former inventor sputters, grabbing at the gymnast’s shoulders with flustered remarks and trying to spin her back around. Akane just snickers. 

The gymnast was staring downwards when Miu joined the table, her expression oddly hollow for somebody normally bright. The former inventor has seen her expression _vacant_ before, normally when she was at loss for what was happening or generally confused, but never that emotionless. Things were definitely running through her head, but her face was so motionless that it was almost impossible to decipher what it was. She doesn’t have food in front of her. Which is really weird, because Miu could have sworn she was always hungry.

Sayaka clears her throat gently.

“Morning,” Most of the team choruses politely, in frightening unison, before they continue their own conversations.

Miu stammers at the greeting, “Y-Yeah, mornin’.”

“Mornin’, kid,” Mondo greets, before he licks the palm of his hand and grabs the bread roll instead of continuing his argument with the former yakuza. Fuyuhiko scoffs, his mouth hanging open in anger, before recognizing his defeat and grumbling back into his chair. “We won’t be here long, Makoto’s making an announcement about our team soon, then we’re ducking out.”

“Did he agree to let it happen?” The former inventor questions immediately, shoving a fork into her food.

Sayaka hums almost sorrowfully, drumming her fingers against her knees, “I… think he _had_ to.”

There’s a beat of silence that passes over them, a few knowing glances being exchanged by the others as they awkwardly swallow their food. Akane once again returns her gaze to the tablecloth in front of her, her smile gone. 

Miu swallows her food roughly at the very jarring reminder of the florist, of the gun that had gone off and the situation that had led to that moment. Mondo stares at the team, all of them noticeably disheveled from the previous day, before he glances around at the rest of the dining hall. His eyebrows furrow.

Most of the people at her table start talking about what they will do next, what they will achieve on Day Three, the day before the time limit. A lot of it involved a follow-up training session for the people with less firearm knowledge, with a focus on how to handle a heated situation with an aggrataved assailant. Mukuro, or whatever that lady’s name was, was nodding, inhaling the information at hand as the rest of the table continued their own conversations. Miu is just as silent, already full despite only having eaten half of her plate. Akane wasn’t talking a whole ton. 

“Miu? You got plans?” Mondo says, dragging the former inventor into the conversation.

Miu sours, “W-Well, _duh,_ I’m not _totally_ useless…!”

“That _isn’t_ what I--”

“About the locks, right? Are you still working on those?” Sayaka interrupts.

 _Right. The locks,_ “Yeah, I gotta work on, uh… electronic lock readers, or some shit. And then I gotta check out the camera models, and then I gotta keep working on the breakers-- And now I’ve signed up for fuckin’ _Macbeth,_ also, so that’s great--”

“Well, Kazuichi can help with the camera models,” Sayaka offers, noticing the ever-growing list of tasks that Miu was listing.

Kazuichi stammers at his name, distracted from trying to talk to Mukuro, “Oh-- Y-Yeah, totally! Uh, lighting crew for _Macbeth,_ right? I’ll... find the sign-up sheet--”

“No, the cameras.”

“...Oh... Yeah, I’ll help her out.”

“Sayaka, you’re still her supervisor,” Mondo reminds her.

“Why the fuck do I need a supervisor?” Miu spits, jabbing a fork aggressively at her food. “You better _pay_ to ogle at me, cob-head!”

Mondo definitely has something to say, but it’s muted behind his gritted teeth. Taka was already staring at him with a facial expression that reminded Miu of Kaede whenever she would nonverbally warn the former inventor before she says something rude. He was definitely regretting his decision of letting her on the team, searching for a reminder as to why he even allowed that to happen in the first place. He sits there like that, face contorted unattractively, before he takes a deep, calming breath, and begins to search the dining hall again. 

His search goes on for another minute as the rest of the table continues talking, before he eventually huffs.

“Where the hell is he?” He mutters to himself. 

“Tardy…” Is the only word Taka utters, shaking his head in mock disappointment. Mondo exhales in amusement at his bro before continuing to search.

They were definitely talking about Makoto, who has not made an entrance. And it made a ton of sense. He looked totally bewildered the last time Miu had seen him, his mouth open and his eyes very noticeably filled to the brim with horrified tears. The former inventor wasn’t sure what had happened with him after that, all she knows is that Sayaka pulled him to the side and explained everything very carefully to him. Mondo was unable to pressure him, considering he was rushing to assist the injured Taka and had ignored his newfound responsibilities as a leader of the enforcement team. Miu was ushered away from the hallway, away from the dead bodies, and did not see any of them for the rest of the day.

“He looked a little sick the last time I saw him,” Sayaka says gently. “He might have slept in. If… you really need somebody to make the speech, I could really quickly--”

Mondo stands up in the middle of her sentence, a sense of determined urgency rushing across his features. He shouts a loud, _“Hey!”_ through cupped hands, immediately silencing the crowd around him. Forks clatter to their plates as the dining hall turns to face the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader, slightly alarmed by the abrupt noise.

“We’re starting an enforcement team. Everybody you see here is a part of it,” He declares, gesturing at the table. Miu initially shrinks at the sudden callout, but eventually allows her shoulders to lower again in confidence. “It’s official-- Future Foundation approved-- Which means if you _start shit_ you’re reporting to us now. Got it? We don’t mean harm, but we aren’t gonna take too fuckin’--” Sayaka rolls her eyes at the unnecessary addition of swears. “--kindly to any violence.”

There’s a general murmur that ripples through the crowd, a cautious agreement to his announcement. Miu can see a lot of her class staring at her with wide eyes, whispering amongst each other as they notice the table she has sat at.

“Any questions, just find me. Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Mondo finishes. “Thanks.”

He sits back down, and the dining hall very slowly begins to erupt into noise once more. It was official: the enforcement team was happening, and it was going to be a prominent group within this convention. Makoto agreed(?), Future Foundation agreed, so the rest of the participants basically _had_ to agree, as well. Whether they believed in Makoto’s leadership or not, these people had the weapons, now. These were the people in power.

And Miu was one of them. Mondo had gestured to _her_ as well.

There’s a very faint happiness that sprouts from in her gut, a slight contentment from choosing the right side. Miu had made the right decision when she requested to join the team, and it was starting to show now. They are beginning to rise, and Miu has chosen the correct side to be on. It’s relief that is laced in her deep exhale, relief that lowers her shoulders and starts curling up her lips. She’s on the right side.

“Here, take it,” She says almost gleefully, pushing her plate over towards Akane. “I’m not hungry.”

Akane grins thankfully, and the day seemed to be starting fairly brightly. As bright as it could get, anyways. Considering… y’know. Everything.

And it will be even brighter once Miu learns how to ignore the dejected expression that Kaede was wearing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 37/40


	28. good morning, good morning!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> himiko's having a pretty alright morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good morning gamers B) if you follow me on tumblr i deleted my old account lmaoooo my new one is the same handle!! 
> 
> also 200 KUDOS HOLY SHIT THANK YOU????????? I LOVE YOU ALL?????????????????
> 
> enjoy the chapter, have a nice day!! :D <33

Himiko wakes up from a dreamless sleep to find Tenko on the floor.

It wasn’t unusual for the brunette to sleepwalk in the middle of the night and end up on the floor the next morning, so it wasn’t totally unexpected. The redhead woke up at a reasonable time in the morning, the sun peeking through the blinds, just to find Tenko sitting in a fetal position on the carpet, almost as if she had been in child’s pose but teetered to the side sometime during the night. She hadn’t woken up, her face peaceful despite the abnormal sleeping position, breathing soft as the sunlight began to fall over her eyes. 

Himiko smiles gently, dragging herself out of bed and silently trudging over to where her girlfriend lay on the floor. She descends slowly to the ground, curling up next to her and closing her eyes to nap once more. 

It takes Tenko another twenty minutes to wake up, and she’s a little confused once she realizes she’s lying on the carpet. It takes her a few more seconds for everything to process until familiarity falls over her and she exhales through her nose, amused. She beams in Himiko’s direction, eyebrows furrowed in curiosity. 

“You were on the floor, so I joined you so you weren’t lonely,” The redhead explains, rubbing at her eyes sleepily with a tiny grin. “This carpet is comfy.”

Tenko smiles again, the kind so bright that it reaches up to her ears. Himiko really loved that smile, “It is comfy!! That must be why I slept on it!”

They giggle, shoulders bouncing as they clutch their stomachs in adrenaline-filled giddiness. Sunlight has brightened the room now, painting a rather clumsy picture of two teenagers, still in their pajamas, tittering on the floor.

There’s always an early-morning anxiety that returns every time Himiko wakes up, her heart beating against her ribcage until she either panics herself into a comatose state or calms down. She can’t explain it, just like a lot of her feelings, and she can’t take her anxiety meds without eating food first unless she wants to get sick. Sometimes the redhead takes that chance, but she usually ends up regretting it later. Himiko can’t afford to be sick today, can’t afford to have an off day this entire week. She just needs to ignore her accelerated heart rate and continue moving forward. But she doesn’t want to show up to breakfast a nervous wreck, either.

“Can we stay here for a little bit?” The redhead yawns, moving her hands so they rest under her head as a makeshift pillow. 

Tenko curls in on herself and moves her hands as well, imitating her girlfriend’s position with a loving grin, “Of course! We’ve already made ourselves comfortable…” She sighs at herself. “I really have to learn how to sleep in a bed again...”

“Well, at least you only sleep-walked to the floor… You could have left the hotel room, or something.”

“My dreams do not go _that_ far!!” She chuckles, turning over to her back. Himiko copies.

The ceiling was bland, but it was nice just to take a moment for themselves, Himiko thinks. She always felt safe in Tenko’s presence, could allow her guard to drop for a moment as she inhaled and exhaled in rhythm with the brunette’s own breathing. Her back has been bruising real bad, reaching an incredible soreness that made it fairly hard for her to breathe beyond tiny intakes of air. She’s trying with everything she had not to wince. Himiko’s eyes close, her palms opening and clothing with every breath.

Day three. How weird it was that she’s spent _three days_ in this convention. It’s all rushed by so quickly.

“Today is going to be a good day,” Tenko narrates, gaze to the ceiling. It almost felt like she was trying to convince herself. “It’s going to be a _great_ day, because first I’m going to breakfast with my lovely girlfriend, then I am going to a dance rehearsal, and then I’m… probably gonna go eat lunch, or something!!”   
  
“Yeah!! Lunch!!” Himiko agrees enthusiastically. “No, this is good. This is good.”

Tenko nods along to her own statement, not too dissimilar to a bobblehead, “And I think-- I think the best part is that you-know-who hasn’t asked for anything, yet.”

“...You mean the AHL member who asked you about the masterkey? They who shall not be named?”

“Exactly! I-I really think it’s over now with her, which is good!” Tenko says, her head still bobbing up and down. “She might have given up on the whole… finding an escape thing…”

“You think?” Himiko hums, shifting around uncomfortably. Her accelerated heart rate demands more air, and she ends up yawning involuntarily. 

Tenko bobs her head up and down in agreement, genuine relief flushed across her smile, “I think!! So, today is… going to be okay! A-And maybe I can also watch you rehearse with your new band!!”

Himiko needs to stop beaming at her girlfriend or she’s going to hurt her face, “You’re not going to see much… but I’d love you to be there to watch us screw everything up.”

“I’m sure you’re not _that_ terrible,” Tenko says with concern.

“Oh, no, I’m still learning. My bandmates just… _really_ don’t care,” Himiko shrugs. Her lips curl upwards cheekily. “And honestly… I have other things to worry about.”

Another round of laughter. Neither have made any attempt to lift themselves off of the floor, still staring upwards. Himiko’s accelerated heart rate has begun to simmer, her thin breathing working to regulate her heartbeat but not doing much to help with the aching feeling on her back. There’s a heaviness that weighs her down, and she can’t tell if it’s the fact that she’s on the floor, the prewritten laziness, or the sore bruise that makes it hard to sit up without grunting like an old man. 

She just feels tired. And she hates that. She hates that so much. And she hates that she’s being so critical already, because she’s _just woken up._ That was a very good reason why she could be this tired, but this overly censorious side of her was already kicking herself for even _thinking_ about yawning. She could practically feel the bags underneath her eyes growing heavier, dragging down her skin and aging her face despite her height never exceeding that of a twelve-year-old’s. There’s a past side of her that wanted her to just do nothing again, that told her to just lay there forever and let the entire thing pass over once more. It worked pretty well last time-- it even got her through half of her season, in fact. But now there were people that she cared deeply for, needed to protect. Now there was a _reason_ for her to pick herself up and keep going.

“Are you okay?” Himiko asks up to the ceiling.

Tenko fidgets a little, obviously not expecting the question, releasing a hum from the back of her throat as she stares upwards. She inhales and exhales deeply before providing an answer.

“I think so,” The brunette replies. A silent beat passes before she turns to her left, looking at Himiko. “Are you okay?”

The knots in her stomach says no. The heavy drowsiness weighing her down says no. The lack of information, the uncertainty of the situation she was so desperately trying to decipher, the ticking countdown that has been proven to hold dire consequences upon reaching it’s limit, says no. But there were constants, at least. People she could trust, friends that would protect her, a group that made her feel included. Classmates that she was grateful for, grateful that they were understanding of who she was and made efforts to support her. She was more grateful for them than they could possibly know.

“I think so,” Himiko nods. She keeps nodding until her eyebrows knit slightly. “...I think so.”

Tenko hasn’t averted her gaze from the redhead’s, a knowing look of concern twinkling in her green eyes. Himiko tries to mute her own expression from being too noticeably dreary, at least to her own standards, but hiding never seems to work with the brunette.

The former aikido raises her left hand, offering it to Himiko with a supportive grin.

“Shall we?” She questions confidently.

Himiko tries to hide a giggle but ultimately fails, her smile peeking through and riding up her cheeks. She raises her right hand and accepts Tenko’s with a business-like authority.

“We shall,” The redhead consents.

She has to be pulled up to her feet by the former aikido master, and does, in fact, end up wincing like an old man. Tenko feels so bad that Himiko gets a free piggy-back ride all the way to the dining hall.

-=+=-

“Awwwwwww, Miu’s made _friends!”_ Kokichi cheeps, flipping himself back around to face the food in front of him. Himiko can’t help but flash Miu a confused glance from where she sat, at a completely different table, before she turns around as well.

Breakfast wasn’t much to complain about. Himiko had gotten more used to the soreness in her back and was actually eating food this time, instead of staring at it uneasily. She cracked a few jokes and actually got to _catch up_ with the classmates she hadn’t talked to in a while, which was great in reminding her just how different these characters were from one another. Ryoma volunteers at an animal shelter, apparently, and Kaede is earning top honors in a lot of her online classes. Gonta has learned to cook. Kirumi can crochet her own small island. Tenko had asked how she had gotten so good at crocheting in such a small amount of time, considering she started about a month ago, but the former maid only smiles and states that she wasn’t good at it. She wasn’t good at all. And that seemed to make her very happy.

There was something to do with the ‘enforcement team’ being officialized that happened very briefly during breakfast, but it didn’t seem too detrimental to anything Himiko was doing, so she couldn’t help but agree with it. It wasn’t as if the redhead was… being violent, or anything. And that was all they seemed concerned with. It might be good to have some order around here, containing anything before it began. To Himiko’s knowledge, the count is still 40/40. Which was good, in a way. She wouldn’t want them to find the exit at the cost of losing all of those people.

Miu did not sit at their table that breakfast, which… may or may not have been a good thing. She seemed to have found a spot with that very enforcement team, having become a member of a militia behind _everybody’s_ back. It didn’t hurt Himiko as much as it baffled her, but she got over it pretty quickly considering how Miu and Kokichi sitting at the table would only be trouble. She also couldn’t imagine that it hurt Kaede all that much, considering the blonde seemed to know about this development much longer than any of her class had. 

“Great to see Miu’s joined a militia,” Ryoma inputs, looking at the strawberry blonde questionably.

Tenko flashes a furrowed glance back at the former inventor, “Uhhhh…. Yeah. Does somebody maybe want to… talk to her about that?”

Himiko lets curiosity get the best of her, and she ends up turning back around. Miu was offering her food to the lady who sat next to her-- Akane, if she remembered clearly-- so obviously they were at least _acquaintanced_ with each other. Maybe even friends, considering how the redhead could never imagine Miu giving any of her _own_ class her food. 

Everybody hears Tenko, but nobody steps forward. Kaede already _has_ talked to her about it, apparently, and nobody else seemed all too keen. The enforcement team was a force to be reckoned with, including some very strong and prominent figures, including a biker gang leader with muscles for days, a gymnast who could probably knock Himiko’s lights out, a… guy with pink hair, another tall (everybody was tall to Himiko) lady with piercing red eyes who was pretty scary. Mukuro Ikusaba also was there now, apparently. Hopefully she told people she had shown up, because Danganronpa had been looking for the soldier for the past few days. And she’s nowhere near Sakine, who was _supposed_ to be her twin sister, if Himiko was up to her Danganronpa lore.

In fact, Sakine just wasn’t there at all. Himiko reckons that she’s scared her off. That, or she secretly _was_ there all along, just dressed as another person and at a completely different table. The redhead wouldn’t be able to tell.

“What even _is_ the enforcement team? And why were those people chosen?” Shuichi queries, scratching nonchalantly at his chin.

“I think you just need to be strong…” Himiko mumbles.

Gonta raises a polite index finger, “Uh-- I was asked… to join. But then they realize I was teenager and took the offer back.”

Odd. That must mean Miu was the only person their age on the team. She had to be an expectation to their “adults only” rule, for some reason. Maybe she was helping them with something.

“Well, I hope they have _somebody_ smart on that team,” Maki says rather seriously. “I heard they were choosing forty people.”

The table erupts into shocked murmurs. The class of Season 53 all begin talking over themselves, whipping their heads towards Maki to interrogate her even further. The former assassin can’t answer much, only replying to most questions with a stern shrug.

 _I’m sure that’s not it…_ Kaede says, her signing rather hesitant.

“Kaede, I’m gonna be completely honest. Miu is scaring me a little bit,” Tenko continues, scratching behind her neck. “I mean, I didn’t really talk to her before all of this, but…”

Kaede sighs, a tense smile curling her lips upwards, _She’s just figuring everything out._

“Oh, how fun!” Kokichi smiles, but definitely doesn’t mean it. His grin drops immediately as he sinks in his chair. “And I wanted to talk to her, too…”

“That’s probably why she didn’t sit with us…” Himiko says sarcastically.

“I believe Miu is happy there, so we should let her go,” Kirumi inputs, gently at first but more confidently once noticing everybody was listening intently. She talks over Kokichi’s fake wailing at Himiko’s remark, bypassing his cries of _‘divorce, divorce!’_ “It makes sense that she would be more comfortable with people outside of her class.”

“But… we’re still _her class,_ she should have… told us, or something!” Kaito refutes, pouring Maki a glass of water. His girlfriend hums gratefully. “There’s no way she hasn’t been sneaking around people’s backs!”

“Yeah… Yeah! You’re totally right!” Kokichi says, punching his right fist into his left palm in a manner not too dissimilar to Kaito himself. “We would totally confront her about it, bro!”

“Kokichi,” Shuichi sighs. The former supreme leader starts wailing again. “I don’t think Miu would try to…” His voice drifts off. If he was about to finish his sentence with _‘I don’t think Miu would try to hurt anybody’,_ he quickly second-guesses himself. “I don’t think Makoto would endorse the enforcement team if they were choosing forty people.”

“I mean, Miu’s already being pretty sneaky,” Maki responds firmly. “And it’s not like I know anybody on that team. I wouldn’t put it past them if they were talking about it in secret.”

“Exactly what I’m saying. She should have told us this,” Kaito huffs.

“Well, let’s be honest with ourselves here,” Korekiyo says. “She’s already told the people she trusts about her situation. The rest of us just simply aren’t close to her.”

It’s perhaps the first time the former anthropologist has spoken up in this way since the convention started. It honestly shocks a lot of the table, who couldn’t exactly remember how he sounded. Korekiyo used his moment to shine quite efficiently, as well, as it shuts a lot of people up for a solid beat. They really couldn’t argue with him. It wasn’t exactly fair for them to expect Miu to tell them everything, considering how nobody at the table was all that close to her. 

And maybe that was for a reason. Himiko certainly can’t remember having a positive interaction with the former inventor. The redhead has tried being nice, and she’s definitely tried just sucking it up when the strawberry blonde calls her an idiot or donkey-lips for the twentieth time that day, but she shouldn’t be expected to make friends with Miu until Miu herself changes her act. Everybody at that table seemed to be changing for the better, actively _trying_ to get better, however miniscule or slow that change might be. But Miu just… seemed to be staying the same. 

“Mega bummer!” Kokichi pouts. He snaps out of it instantly, again showing his insincerity to the topic. Maybe Kokichi was staying the same, too. His personality was so extravagant and over-the-top that it was hard to tell. “Well, I gotta dash, anyways! I got major stuff to be doing!”

Himiko waves him a solid goodbye, and the table once again dissolves into conversation about how people have been doing away from the simulator, with help from Kaito’s impressive distracting skills. Korekiyo once again slinks back, almost as if he was never a part of the conversation in the first place.

It gives Himiko a very sudden idea.

-=+=-

Himiko slams into the vents so aggressively that Korekiyo jumps and slams his head on the ceiling. 

“I got it! I got it!!” She whispers with high urgency, frantically pulling herself into the tiny space and closing the grate behind her.

Korekiyo’s eyes were initially wide in startled shock, but they begin to narrow in annoyance as he realizes it is only the former mage, “...And what exactly might that be?”

She reaches into her skirt’s pocket to reveal an orange prescription bottle, half filled with tiny, dark green modules. The white cap has flicks of red nail polish on them, the sticker around it wearing down. It is not Himiko’s.

“It’s Junko’s!” She exclaims with a childlike giddiness, holding the stolen item in front of Korekiyo’s face.

The former anthropologist freezes, staring dumbfounded at the redhead. The confession to thievery came _much_ too easily, and quite obliviously, from the former mage. The silence is deafening. If his mask was off, it would undoubtedly reveal a dropped jaw.

“Wh--” He starts to stay something, but is once again caught off guard by how dumbfounding the confession was and stumbles. He has to close his eyes and take a deep breath before continuing. “How… have you done this?”

“A good magician never reveals her secrets,” She says cheekily, bringing a secretive finger up to her lips. Himiko tosses the bottle in her hands with the same childish grin, before it drops rather seriously. “Pick-pocketing. I pick-pocketed her--”

“I presumed so,” Korekiyo sighs, reaching for the bottle with a disappointed shake of the head. He can’t even say anything about the bottle. He looks at Himiko with an almost baffled look of discontent, before exhaling deeply once more and returning to the prescription’s label. “Did you do this immediately after breakfast?”

Oh, yeah. Her friends had left the dining hall feeling a little baffled by Miu switching sides, all splitting up to their individual Talent Swap events. But _Himiko,_ with a boost from the heightened morale of her friends, struts in the opposite direction of her class and searches for Junko Enoshima, now apparently embracing danger and the idea of being slaughtered for sneaking around where she wasn’t supposed to. 

Himiko’s smile begins to strain across her cheeks, “Uhhh-- I’m gonna be completely honest, I think I went a little bit on a whim, here! I just… saw her and went for it…!”

“She didn’t notice, did she?”

“Hey...What kind of magician do you take me for, an amateur?” The redhead jokes, nervously rubbing at her hands.

“This is… straight up purloining,” Korekiyo deadpans. “This is a crime. You have commited a crime.”

“Nyeh… just read the funny words!!”

The former anthropologist shakes his head one more time before he averts his attention towards the labeling, his golden eyes focusing intently on the description, “I’m not sure what you expected from this, but I will admit this medication is rather strong. These are basically tranquilizers.”

“No, no, no-- Check the label again. Check who prescribed them.”

Himiko reaches over and taps at a specific line, pushing herself towards him enthusiastically. Korekiyo noticeably recoils as she gets closer to gesture wildly at her discovery, hunching even further in on himself before any part of her even thinks to brush against his shoulder. He’s so distracted by slowly inching himself away that he barely pays attention to what Himiko was looking at.

“Danganronpa,” She narrates, running her index finger across the specific line. “Not a psychiatrist, _Danganronpa.”_

Korekiyo’s eyebrows furrow, “Yes. Odd.”

“Can I give you my hippothesis?”

“Hypothesis. And, yes.”

“This proves she _is_ smart,” Himiko states confidently, her movements slightly too enthusiastic as she slams herself back against the vent wall to face the former anthropologist. “They’re just dumbing her down! It’s like… Esther from _Solve-It-Squad!”_

“You have quite the affiliation to mystery-related forms of media, are you aware of that?” Korekiyo quips. Himiko scrunches her nose at him. “And this could just be pain medication.”

“That’s what _I_ thought as well, but then I remembered the conversation you had written down in your notebook-- The one you showed me a little bit ago-- And she said that she could do more but she was just on drugs!” She politely extends her hand for the stolen bottle once more, and Korekiyo plops it into her palm. “So it gives me a reason to be suspicious.”

Korekiyo spends a long beat staring at Himiko and she tosses the bottle up and down in her hands. There’s something in his expression that softens.

“Himiko... I really wasn’t cross, yesterday,” He says, very easily grasping the underlying motive behind the redhead’s actions. “You had every reason to be suspicious of her. You didn’t have to go searching for something to justify your feelings with.”

Now it’s Himiko’s turn to shrink. She hadn’t blatantly thought of their last conversation as being the reason she rushed forward and stole the bottle, but now that he’s said it out loud, maybe it _was_ the reason, deep down. His abrupt statement at breakfast seemed to have reminded Himiko about yesterday’s conversation, where she had indirectly insulted him by claiming that evil people in the simulator were evil in real life. Maybe a subconscious part of her still felt guilty about it all, felt guilty about offending her partner through correlation, so she needed to find something to justify her assumptions with. When she steps back and looks at it, she feels _bad_ about hurting his feelings, even if he had expressed multiple times that he wasn’t angry. Which is also weird, considering she can’t remember really feeling bad about hurting his feelings before all of this.

“...Well… Is it a _good_ justification?” She mumbles.

Korekiyo hums fondly, but doesn’t give her a clear answer to her question.

“I don’t see how you are going to return this to her without her knowledge. And you can’t hold on to this forever, if your theory is correct. This could very well be her kryptonite,” He says, almost worriedly at first but soon diving into joking territory.

Himiko throws her hands into the air, “Can I at least get points for _confidence--?”_

“Absolutely. One point for confidence.”

“--I really wasn’t thinking about that at all… Oh, man...” The redhead continues over him. “But I’m pretty sure I can do it. I’m sure if I’m careful, I can get it back to her...”

“How, may I ask?” Korekiyo hums. The former mage flicks her hand whimsically in the air, vanishing the tiny bottle before his very eyes. She comically checks her skirt pockets and her jacket pockets to find absolutely nothing, before cheekily eyeing at Korekiyo’s coat pocket. He squints in confusion as he reaches into his jacket, pulling the bottle out with an amused exhale. “Touché.”

“Gonna be honest, I’m feeling good about this day!” Himiko muses with a genuine smile. “My whole body hurts, but other than that, I think things are going to go well!”

“Hm. Perhaps your brain has given you this sudden burst of energy to soften the inevitable damage that tomorrow’s time limit will bring. Your body’s last hurrah before it completely shuts down,” Korekiyo replies.

A long pause.

Himiko’s nose twitches in playful anger, “Why… are you like this?”

They both know the answer to that, but Korekiyo titters, anyways. He continues to chortle through his teeth as he gives one last inspection to the bottle in his hand. To Himiko’s surprise, he unscrews the cap and shakes one of the capsules into the palm of his hand, bringing the module close to his face for further inspection. It’s gazed at thoroughly before it gets dropped back into the bottle. He hands it back to the former mage, unconsciously patting at his pockets, almost as if checking she didn’t magically poof the prescription back into his jacket.

“How are _you_ feeling this morning, Korekiyo?” Himiko challenges, crossing her arms in a over-exaggeratedly concerned manner. 

“Fine,” He answers vaguely.

“...Just… fine?”

“Yes,” Korekiyo repeats once more, a little more quickly this time. He rushes to change the subject. “I have sport practice for quite a large chunk of the day, so I might be unavailable for--”

“You don’t talk about yourself that much, you know that?” 

It was once again quite the abrupt question, one that Himiko doesn’t exactly recognize the weight of. Korekiyo’s eyebrow raises, perhaps knowingly. As if he was very aware he was attempting to bypass the discussion of what he was feeling in that current moment.

There’s a beat of silence, almost as if he had opened his mouth to say something before closing it again, “There isn’t much to say.”

That was definitely a lie, but Himiko wouldn’t go into it. If a subject change is what he wants, then a subject change is what he’ll get, “...Have you figured out which sport you’re playing yet?”

“...No,” He answers timidly, almost as if he was embarrassed. 

Himiko enthusiastically pats him on the shoulder, causing the poor boy to flinch immensely, “Well, then that’s something you can look forward to, today!”

“...Please do not touch me.”

“My bad!” She says with the exact same enthusiasm, shoving the prescription bottle into her pocket and crawling back towards the entrance. “That’s all I had to say. I’ve got band practice, also. I’ll try to give these back to Junko.”

“Please be careful,” He advises. “And don’t overexert yourself. You wouldn’t want to crash in the middle of the day.”

That’s a good idea, because Himiko very often tends to do just that: will herself to gain a random burst of energy before subsequently crashing and burning about two hours later.

“I’ll see you a bit later,” Himiko waves. “And hopefully you know the name of the sport you’re playing by then.”

The corners of his eyes crinkle, indicating a genuine smile as he wiggles his fingers in an odd wave back, “Don’t get caught returning those.”

“Have some confidence in me, Korekiyo!”

He can only nod as she returns the grate to its original position. There’s a whisper from the vents as she leaves, almost as if the former anthropologist had made some noise of agreement but had exclaimed it much too softly to be heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 37/40


	29. fine. (fine!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a technical rehearsal for macbeth!

“Lighting cue seventeen, standby…” A reasonable pause. ”...Alright, go.”

Miu wasn’t listening.

“Lighting cue seventeen, _go,”_ The stage manager repeats into the former inventor’s headset.

The strawberry blonde taps at her personal keyboard, fixated on the wrong thing. There was a distinct lack of lighting happening for a technical rehearsal. 

_“Miu!”_

The former inventor jumps, immediately slamming her hands against the lighting board to hit the next cue. She ends up deleting a few cues and sets the play back about three scenes lighting wise, flooding the stage with different colors and visual effects as she scrambles to fix her mistake. Kazuichi flings himself forward in his spinny chair and rapidly tries to help, unintentionally copying Miu’s exact panicked facial expression. Sayaka, who had been sitting politely off to the side and studying her lines, leans over to see what is happening but can’t offer much help. Neither of the tech-inclined ultimates are professionals at stage lighting, despite their technology-inclined talents, so it takes the two of them about a minute to fumble with the controls before Miu just turns the board off.

The stage manager enters the stage from the right wing, her eyebrows knitted in agitation as she stares upwards. The actors onstage hold their scripts in their hands, resetting themselves to the beginning of the scene with tired mumbles.

“All good up there?” The stage manager calls out.

Kazuichi reaches for the microphone with an apologetic expression, “U-Uh, yeah, man! Sorry!”

He quickly turns off the microphone so Miu can’t respond with anything inappropriate. The stage manager sighs heavily as she exits, and the scene restarts when Celeste, their unofficial Lady Macbeth, begins reading her first line.

“This shit sucks total _ass!!_ They can’t expect me to do _everything!”_ Miu complains in a whisper, almost as if worried they could hear her despite the soundproof glass that separates them.

“B-But you’re not doing _everything,_ we’ve already set up the cues!” Kazuichi replies in a similar whisper, fidgeting with the lighting board until it powers back on.

“Just make sure you aren’t getting _too_ distracted, Miu! Haha,” Sayaka smiles, before returning to her chair in the corner of the room. 

Miu side-eyes her as a reply, “It’s harder than it fuckin’ looks!!”

“You just gotta press a button!” Kazuichi says.

“You think I’m so incompetent that I can’t press a fuckin’ circle, highlighter bitch!?”

The Ultimate Mechanic doesn’t know what to say in response, and only ends up shrugging as he wheels himself back over to the spotlight. He checks through the script for any cues he could possibly be missing during this conversation before he continues, “We gotta stop getting distracted… we’re making everyone super friggin’ mad…”

Miu nearly laughs at the word _‘frigging’_ , but huffs instead, “Bah. Fuck ‘em. I’m doin’ my own shit.”

The mechanic pulls a face, scooting himself closer to the follow-spot so that he’s able to shine a bright light on the entering Messenger, played by a rather enthusiastic “Li’l Ultimate PE”. Miu pays attention to the scene with an unamused expression, waiting for Celeste to take center stage before she presses at her lighting board, setting the cue into motion for the Ultimate Gambler to monologue. With a few minutes to spare and no more lighting cues to listen to, Miu turns back to her personal laptop. 

The lock reader prototype had come across pretty quickly, a lot of the process being sped up by the conjoined efforts of an Ultimate Inventor and an Ultimate Mechanic putting their heads together for a brief moment. Miu, being… Well, Miu, was obviously resistant to any offered help at first, but Kazuichi held a similar high-energy and noticeable perseverance towards escaping, so while his mechanic skills were fairly rusty he was still eager to help. So eager, in fact, that it had overridden Miu referring to him as a “shark-toothed neon whore”. They were making progress, at least.

Miu had scanned one of the locks using the reader prototype, and has now been given the task of reading and sorting through the pile of code that’s been given to her. Chihiro, an _Ultimate Programmer,_ should have probably figured this out already, right? This shit was _hard,_ nobody was denying that, but the firewalls on this thing surely couldn’t have been that much of a match against a man whose entire talent revolved around programming and computers, right? Where even _is_ Chihiro?

Miu’s prewritten talent was inventing, so that is what she is going to do to tackle this problem head-on. She’s going to _invent_ her own key, one that takes this code and flips it on its fucking head. She’s gonna use these locks _against_ whoever was behind all of this, was gonna shove it in the face of the individual who locked them all in this shithole. Her own personal “fuck you”. She’s already started progress on a tiny chip that almost resembles a robotic insect, once that will ideally seal itself onto the electronic lock and… do something. Maybe explode, or something cool like that. Of course, the explosion isn’t needed, considering it will break down the lock’s code and disable it, but it might be a cool after-effect that really knocks people’s socks off. An unnecessary showstopper that will probably cause a few injuries.

“Miu-- Miu, the cue’s coming up--!” Kazuichi whispers nervously.

Miu wakes up from her daydreaming and throws herself at the lighting board, tapping the button to activate the flood light, “I-I knew that!!!”

“A little early, but okay,” The stage manager says through the intercom, causing Miu to shrink. Kazuichi lets a laugh slip and the former inventor scowls at him. “Do you have the script in front of you, Miu?”

 _“Eee--_ I-I do, I swear!!” She replies into her headset, frantically flipping her script to find the scene they were currently on. She knocks over one of her spare keycards in the process. “I-I-I’m just trying to-- I’m doing something important!!!!”

“I got it, Mahiru!” Kazuichi says into his headset, turning off the spotlight to roll over to where Miu was working. He sets his own script down, filled with distracted doodling and noticeably uncoordinated cues, ready to take over. Miu sends some sort of warble in his direction, one that very vaguely resembled a thank you, as she resumes her own work. He picks up the keycard she had dropped. “Uh, is this important?”

“Wh-- Duh- _doy,_ of course it is!" She jabs, swiping the card from his hands. “...It’s got... _something_ on it.”

“...Did you forget?”

“O-Of course not!! Stop grilling my ass!!!”

“I’m not--!!”

Their somewhat childish argument is paused before it even begins by a gentle knock at the door. All three occupants in the room look over through the glass, checking if they missed yet another cue and Mahiru had walked up to the lighting booth to kick them in the ass. To their relief, the rehearsal was still continuing smoothly. Kazuichi and Miu snap their head towards the other, pulling the exact same face, as if waiting for the other to open the door. Miu’s timid side once again proves to be her weakness, and she is the first to crumble.

“Who is it?” She demands at the door, before making any effort to stand up. Kazuichi presses a button to activate the next cue while the former inventor has her headset off.

There’s a noticeable hesitance and few mumbles behind the door, almost as if they were conferring with another person, before the knocker announces, “It’s Gonta?”

Miu rolls her eyes so far back into her head that they almost got stuck there. The other two look at each other in confusion, obviously not knowing who the former entomologist was, but upon noticing Miu’s visibly disgruntled expression they came to realize he was probably from her season. Therefore, he was her problem to deal with.

“I’m not here!” The strawberry blonde calls back half-heartedly.

The sound of feet shuffling behind the door answers her, almost as if he believed it for a second and began to move away before getting stopped, “Oh, um-- I have some… thing to say?”

“I’m too busy pressing a button, _sorry.”_

Kazuichi squints for a moment, knowing full well that _he_ is the one pressing the button to change cues. Sayaka looks up from her script with a raised eyebrow, her eyes shifting between Miu and the door. The former inventor groans dramatically. She closes her laptop while the other two occupants in the room resume their own work.

“Gonta?” She calls, pushing herself begrudgingly up to her feet.

“Um, yes?”

“Is it just you, Gonta?”

There’s a very, very noticeable pause, before, “...Yes.”

Miu squints her eyes, crossing her arms over chest. Her teeth are bared as she demands, “Open the door. It’s _just you, Gonta?”_

“...It just me.”

There is way too much hesitation that happens before the doorknob begins to turn slowly. A few mumbles ripple from behind the door before Gonta cautiously flings it open, revealing a partner standing buoyantly at his side.

“And Kokichi!!!!” The former supreme leader announces gleefully, spreading his arms wide in a theatric gesture. 

Miu doesn’t have time to open her mouth and yell at him to get out before Kokichi shoves himself into the room, yanking Gonta in with him and shutting the door. The purple teenager has changed into a dark green sweater and some jean shorts, a rather out-of-place backpack hunching his shoulders and giving off the vibes of a child heading to elementary school. The gap between his two front teeth further exaggerates this childlike demeanor of his, made ever more visible through his wide grin. Gonta has a leather satchel over his left shoulder, filled with music sheets for whatever shitty band he found himself in.

“How’s it hangin’?” Kokichi greets. “To speak my truth, I’ve been looking for you all over--”

Miu immediately sticks her fingers into her ears, cutting the boy off with an abrupt chant of, “Nope, not fuckin’ listening! La la la la la!!!”

“WAAAAAH!! So _mean!!”_ He cries right back, matching her tone and crumbling in on himself as she continues to ignore him. “You’re such a mean perrsssoooooooooooonnnnn!!! And in front of our _guests!!”_

“Hello! I… Am, um, Gonta!” The former entomologist introduces underneath his classmates bickering, politely reaching for Sayaka’s hand. The pop sensation smiles and accepts it. Her hand is tiny in comparison. “I… am in Miu class! I am working on grammar, so sorry for mistakes.”

Sayaka beams, “That’s perfectly alright! I’m Sayaka Maizono, it’s very nice to meet you, Gonta!” She looks over at Kazuichi, who was using what little focus he has to hover a finger over the lighting board, waiting intently for his next cue. “That’s Kazuichi Souda, who’s a little busy at the moment.”

“Pay attention to me!!! Give me attention!!!” Kokichi wails in the background, before snapping back to a smile. “Maybe I should stick my tits out to get people’s attention. That always seems to work for you!”

“Shut the fuck uuuuuuuuuuup, shut up!” Miu groans. She sits back down at the desk and shoves the headset back over her ears, hoping it will block the boy out. “God, just _zip_ your chapped lips, ya petri dish baby!”

Kokichi glides forward towards the desk. He looms over the desk, his eyes glancing over Miu’s laptop before quickly shifting away from it. Kazuichi curls in on the lighting board, narrowing his tunnel of focus.

“Wow, high-tech!” Kokichi compliments ingenuinely. “I _appreciate_ you sticking to your brand!”

“To speak my truth, I’d _appreciate_ it if you _shut the fuck up!”_

“You want to have sex with me so badly it makes you look _stupid--”_

“Wow! Hey!” Sayaka interjects with a tense smile, clapping her hands together. Miu flinches at the noise from behind her, whipping her head around with intense ferocity. Kokichi definitely notices. “...So, this dynamic is certainly… fun!”

“Kiss my ass,” Miu hisses at him.

“You _wish,_ whore,” Kokichi smiles right back. 

“Hey, hey. If neither of you have anything nice to say… then maybe we should split this up, yeah?” Sayaka suggests firmly, yet still holding a gentle edge.

The next cue is called by Mahiru. Miu tries to respond, but Kazuichi, fixated on the task at hand so intensely as to not be distracted by the antics behind him, presses the button before she can get to it. Gonta was also focusing on the lighting board-- on anything else he could look at, honestly-- instead of the people he should be talking to. 

Kokichi turns to Sayaka with an expression so innocent that it could convince any stranger that he had done nothing wrong, “Oh, I am so sorry! My name’s Kokichi Ouma! Miu and I are besties! This is just, like, _totally_ a bestie thing we do! Friendly banter!”

“I’m not his fuckin’ friend,” Miu retaliates, adjusting her headset.

“She means that with love,” He says, drumming his fingers across the top of Miu’s laptop before pushing himself towards the former entomologist. “And I came here because Gonta has something to say!!”

“I _know,_ and I don’t want to fuckin’ hear it.”

Kokichi pouts overdramatically at her, “It’s not about _that._ Stop making everything about you! God, Iruma, you’re such an attention seeking whore!”

“A-Attention seeking--!?”

“Do both you _and_ Gonta have to be here to tell Miu?” Sayaka rationalizes calmly. “Maybe this is a matter just for those two?”

“Oh, no, no, no! I should be here,” Kokichi insists. He gestures at the former entomologist, who shifts uncomfortably at the dramatic signal. “Take it away, Gonta!”

Kokichi sets his backpack down on the floor, the main pocket already unzipped and wide open, revealing to Miu just what its purpose was. It was filled to the brim with magic props, parlor tricks stacked upon parlor tricks. Of course he’d steal that other midget’s talent. What, did Himiko take his? Did they do a cheeky fucking swap? Did they just throw their hands in the air and decide the easiest thing to do in that convention was do an impression of the other and call it a day? 

Gonta furrows his eyebrows at the backpack, and then the floor, and then Sayaka’s feet. Avoiding Miu’s unwavering glare like the plague. Miu was making damn sure that neither him nor Kokichi left her vision, and was backing her chair all the way to the desk so they didn’t have any possible way of sneaking up on her. Gonta noticed and was definitely becoming more nervous because of it. If Kokichi felt nervous about it, it wasn’t visible in his face. There _was_ slight tension in his shoulders, but it’s so subtle that it was basically invisible to the naked eye.

“Gon-- _I_ carried Makoto’s books for him yesterday. Makoto was talking to Danganronpa official,” Gonta starts, mainly narrating for Sayaka, who nodded along patiently.

“Gonta, I was _there,”_ Miu reminds him bitterly. “I fucking _saw you,_ I know what happened.”

The man noticeably stammers. It was incredible to think that somebody like Miu could intimidate somebody as giant as Gonta, “Oh, yes-- But Gonta listened to their conversation, and now has information.”

“...Eavesdropping? You were fuckin’ _eavesdropping?”_

“Non non! He wasn’t eavesdropping!” Kokichi defends quickly. “He was just listening! With a _purpose!”_

“Eavesdropping.”

“Stop bullying Gonta,” He frowns, pointing at the former inventor with a stern finger. Miu shrivels.

Gonta fiddles with his fingers uncomfortably, shifting around as Kazuichi once again clicks at the lighting board. The mechanic hums under his breath, occupied with other matters, adjusting a cue while the others stare at the former entomologist. Kokichi jumps around the room, jumps from the desk to his backpack and quickly zips it up.

“Did they say something bad?” Sayaka continues, deliberately moving the conversation forward.

“No! No,” Gonta waves. “They talking about ‘Plan B’, and it involved enforcement team. And Miu is on enforcement team, so--”

“Is this what you were trying to talk to me about yesterday?” Miu asks pointedly.

“...No. That different.”

“What about the enforcement team?” Sayaka asks. She’s beginning to notice that the former entomologist was stalling, probably because two members of the enforcement team were in the room with him. When he entered the lighting booth, he was obviously only expecting Miu to be there. Miu would throw herself through the glass window before she sat alone in a room with those two. “Do you just want to talk to Miu about this?”

“No, he doesn’t,” Miu answers for him.

“Just tell ‘em, Gonta,” Kokichi allows. There’s something confident behind his smile, as if he will _know_ if they were to start lying to him now. He’s this snarky little lie detector. 

“...Well, Maki talk-- _was talking_ about it during breakfast… So... might be good to ask,” The former entomologist says slowly. “The Danganronpa official said that enforcement team choose forty people to… sac… rifice? By the end of time limit? Gonta want to know if that true…?”

Sayaka’s mouth opens for a brief second, but closes soon after. Miu is just as silent. The former inventor truly does not know the answer to that, and she’s assuming Sayaka doesn’t either. Miu hasn’t heard shit about that, but now that Gonta mentions it, it does seem a bit… _reasonable_ that the enforcement team would be the ones to choose. Or, maybe it _wasn’t_ reasonable, but Miu was assuming as such because she was on the enforcement team, meaning she (probably) won’t be selected. It seemed cruel, almost, to feel slight relief in the fact that she would be less likely to be selected as some sick sacrifice. Feeling relief over her own safety tightens her stomach, in guilt almost, some form of regret. Or, god forbid, _fear_ for the people not on this team. 

Maybe it’s dread. She reckons it’s dread for what’s about to hit the fan. Yeah, that’s it. She isn’t a nice enough person for this nauseous feeling beginning to bubble in her stomach to be caused by fear for _other_ people’s safety. That’s Kaede’s job, or Gonta’s job, or even _Himiko’s_ job, for fuck’s sake. Not hers. Not when this concern was not reciprocated by the very class in question. If they don’t care for her, she will not care for them. 

It’s already working out _great--_ this whole separation thing. Not caring about others is actually super easy. Give Miu about a week, and she will forget everything about Season 53. She’s already forgotten the name of that painting chick. Angelina, or some shit.

Sayaka looks baffled, almost. Slightly mortified at Gonta's suggestion.

“I… _really_ haven’t heard anything,” She answers, assumably truthfully considering Kokichi’s curt nod. “Would… you like me to ask Makoto?”

Gonta looks over at Miu for a moment, almost as if she would give him another answer. There’s something in his expression that implies he wants more information, something even further that suggests that _he_ has more information that he wants to share. And he would be willing to share, if Miu wasn’t… like that. Instead of an answer, the former inventor contritely turns her head to the side. She would swivel around, but then Gonta and Kokichi would have the advantage of being behind her and she wasn’t willing to take that chance.

“No. That okay, thank you Miss Sayaka!” Gonta replies, slapping a weak smile across his face.

“Is there… something _else_ you’d like to say, Gonta?” Kokichi says, his eyebrow raised as if he was trying to fish something out of the former entomologist. 

Gonta looks over at Miu, his face contorting for a moment. The former inventor barely looks at him, but can’t help but feel icky when her eyes briefly flicker upwards to meet his. Guilt? Was that even something she was capable of? He should be the guilty one.

“No,” Gonta concludes, shaking his head. “No, that’s all. Gonta sorry to bother.”

“It was nice to meet you, Gonta,” Sayaka waves politely. Miu should tell her that he murdered her in cold blood. Maybe then the pop star wouldn’t be so polite. It felt a little evil to Gonta, though, who practically dripped in regret whenever he looked at the former inventor.

“Awh, phooey! I guess you forgot, Gonta! You knucklehead!” Kokichi jabs playfully, childishly punching the former entomologist in the arm. The taller teenager doesn’t flinch. It’s almost as if Kokichi never even punched him. “Run along and tell the others, yeah? I wanna talk to Miu.”

“No,” Miu hisses at the former supreme leader, “I think _you_ should run along a _busy traintrack.”_

 _“Miu,”_ Sayaka warns softly. 

“Ah, yikes, I’m gonna… head out…” Kazuichi says awkwardly, seemingly called down by Mahiru to confer about the more technical elements of _Macbeth._ He picks up his script and quickly slinks out of the booth before the argument goes any further. 

Gonta inhales through his teeth, noticeably a little hesitant on what his next action will be, before he inevitably realizes he wasn’t getting anywhere. His face is sunken and remorseful as he trudges out of the booth as well. Kokichi waves him goodbye, but his smile falls as soon as the former entomologist is gone.

“That was _mean,_ Miu,” Kokichi scolds.

“Get out,” Miu orders, not even looking at him as she points towards the exit.

“Mean, mean, mean. You are such a _mean_ person.”

Sayaka’s eyebrows furrow. She noticed how Miu’s shoulders had tensed up, “I think Miu might be a little busy right now?”

It seems Miu’s temper has reached the end of it’s unusually short string today. So much so that she pushes herself upwards, out of her chair, “Is ‘annoy the fuck out of everybody’ the only thing on your schedule, shrimp dick? Have you got nothin’ else to do in that sad little life of yours!?”

“To speak my truth, I’m just assessing the situation!” Kokichi says in defense, throwing his hands up in surrender. “And Gonta _reeaallly_ wanted to talk to you. He’d been worrying about it the entire time he’s been here.”

There’s a pang of regret that flashes in her stomach, something very faintly contrite that twitches her expression. Gonta has obviously been wanting to talk to her. Maybe he saw this convention as some sort of redemption for their relationship, a place where he could apologize and everything would go by smoothly. Miu didn’t want to hear it. Miu wasn’t _ready_ to hear it.

Kokichi continues with a disheartened sigh, as if this development was unfavorable for him as well as Gonta, “I was just helping him out! But you didn’t even listen...”

“I _did_ listen. In fact, the amount of time I gave him was fuckin’ _gracious,_ considering he’s talking to _me--”_

“Okie dokie, narcissist! Have fun with your _murder squad--!”_

Miu nearly growls at him. _He’s such a little shit,_ “Kokichi, I wish _every day_ that you just _don’t fucking wake up--”_

“Ah. You know, I’m starting to see… what the situation here is,” Sayaka mumbles, mainly to herself, nodding along. Her hands are folded neatly in front of her, her expression still concerned yet noticeably hardening. “...I think I get it, now.”

Kokichi flips towards Sayaka with the nastiest grin Miu has ever seen in his life. The former inventor does not get a say in what he says next, in fact he ignores the strawberry blonde so vehemently that it twitches her lips into an ugly snarl.

Kokichi places his hands on his hips and turns towards the pop sensation, “Hey, Sayaka! Did Miu ever tell you she tried to kill somebody?”

The anger that shoots through Miu is abrupt. It’s a flaming sensation that starts from deep in her gut and rises up through her throat until her cheeks are hot, flaring her nostrils and widening her blue eyes until they are the size of saucers. It’s not even unexpected at this point, which should hurt a little more than it did. Kokichi isn’t _unexpected_ anymore. It just seems to repeat with him. It just seems to repeat with _them._

There’s so much she wants to say that it crowds her mind busily, the possibilities of retorts boundless and entering her skull just as quickly as they leave. Most of it swears. The majority of it at least _included_ swears. Her nails are digging themselves so roughly into her palms that it was bound to leave crescents into her skin. How dare he. How dare he? In front of fucking _Sayaka?_

Miu was trying with everything she fucking had to leave her stupid class behind her, leave the _killing game_ behind her, so why couldn’t Kokichi just leave her alone? She didn’t _want_ to be associated with that game, didn’t _want_ to be associated with what she did, but Miu keeps getting dragged back into by this malicious little twat. What about the game was so fucking entertaining that he had to yank it back into every single conversation he had with the former inventor, even going as far as _cornering_ her in this tiny little lighting booth just to _really_ rub it in. Can’t Kokichi just get over it? Can’t Kokichi just _fucking_ _get over it!?_

She’s _mortified._ Miu can rant and yell and dig deep into Kokichi’s faults when they’re surrounded by people who _know_ what happened in their killing game, who would sigh and roll their eyes at their antics. But Kokichi has just dropped this truth bomb right in front of somebody she was trying to earn trust from. Kokichi has just dragged this ugly truth, unnecessarily, into the conversation-- so suddenly that it could have knocked her out of her chair. 

Miu wants to say something. _Needs_ to say something, to defend herself. She needs to jab a finger into that brat’s face and start screaming at him, or shove him like she did to that little friend of his. Or, hell, remind him that _she wasn’t the only fucking person who tried to kill somebody._ Remind him, forcefully, that he _had_ gotten people killed. That he had absolutely no right to say any of those things. That he was a hypocrite to say that to _her,_ to deflect all of _his_ problems onto _her._ She wanted to _strangle_ that motherfucker. 

But she had to apologize to Sayaka, as well. Miu needed to scream at Kokichi but turn around to Sayaka and rationally explain that she was a calm person who was _not_ trying to kill anybody. Oh, god, and right after that fucking florist had run up and stabbed somebody in the gut? What if Sayaka thought Miu was about to do the same? What if Sayaka never trusts Miu again, just because Kokichi doesn’t know when to drop a grudge? Miu nearly feels the violent urge to turn around and _apologize._ She’s already ruined so many relationships with her class because of that stupid killing game, so many that she almost feels the need to drop to her knees and plead for forgiveness before the pop sensation runs and tells even more people. She wants to fight, strangle, yell, and beg for forgiveness at the same time.

But it doesn’t happen. Things were different today. She just didn’t hold that same resolve as she had that first day, on the roof, where she shrieked and threw paint and defended herself. She was embarrassed. Miu was _embarrassed._ No matter how much she wanted to fight, it just doesn’t happen.

It doesn’t happen, and now she’s tearing up. 

It’s even more embarrassing. Her lower lips is fucking wobbling like a goddamn child. Kokichi’s smile noticeably falters, his eyes narrowing. In confusion, maybe. Or bitterness. She’s nearly tempted to scoff at him, to yell something along the lines of _‘at least_ **_I_ ** _can cry_ **_real_ ** _tears, you hollow prick’,_ but she’s just too tired. And if she opens her mouth, she will choke on the lump in her throat and make it even more obvious she’s emotional.

Sayaka’s face drops instantly, “Alright, it’s time to leave.”

Kokichi might have had more to say, but there’s something behind his expression that looks tired, as well. His smile is still there, but his eyes look duller. 

“This new team of yours looks really fun! I’m glad _one_ of us is moving forward,” He says, in a way that makes it hard to tell whether he’s being genuine or sarcastic. Kokichi turns from Miu and then towards Sayaka, reaching for his bag at the same time. “Sayaka Maizono. I reckon I remember you! Season One, right?” 

He doesn’t finish the sentence. He only looks from the fuming pop sensation and over towards Miu, then hums. Like he’s found some sort of similarity. He leaves them in silence and doesn’t further explain, but Sayaka must have known, somehow, about this implied similarity, as her face darkens even further. Kokichi adjusts the backpack over his shoulder and pauses at the door.

After a sigh, he has the _nerve_ to turn around and ask, with that same smile of his, “Will you talk to Gonta before the time limit tomorrow?”

“Die,” Miu rumbles.

“Gladly,” Kokichi says with a grin. There’s nothing behind his expression that implies falsity, his usual spark simply not there anymore. “I’ll see you around, bestie!”

And he’s gone. And it’s quiet.

Miu turns around in her chair, hunching her shoulders in over the lighting board and flicking with a few buttons to occupy herself. Her loud sniff does not go unnoticed and she absolutely hates how pathetic she looks. And sounds. And acts. The rehearsal is over. She doesn’t even have to be here anymore, but she’s running her fingers over the switches and glaring at her hands. Damnit, Sayaka hates her now. She must. Or at least feels some sort of distrust. And now everything’s ruined _again_ and she’s gonna have to find some _other_ way to protect herself, and--

Sayaka takes Kazuichi’s seat and gently places her hand on Miu’s shoulder. The gesture was nice, but it frightened Miu a little and the former inventor finds herself flinching at her touch. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry--” The pop sensation apologizes profusely. “You just looked like you were crying--”

“O-Of course I’m not, _dumbass!”_ Miu warbles, averting her face. _“God,_ you’re so-- so fuckin’-- He’s just so--”

She exhales wearily, her sigh trembling as her head collapses onto the desk. Almost like her entire body shut down. She’s just so sick of him. Of her entire goddamn class.

Sayaka waits a few moments with bated breath, before she very cautiously places her hand on Miu’s shoulder once more. The silence isn’t tense, in fact it’s rather comfortable. It wasn’t as if the pop sensation was saying anything, really, only rubbing gentle circles into the former inventor’s back as Miu remained sprawled over the desk like a ragdoll. 

“He’s just being a dick,” Miu says quickly, and rather quietly. “I-I really swear that I’m not like tha--”

“I know. Don’t worry about it, really,” Sayaka interjects. “The killing game was rough on everybody. And this event isn’t exactly helping… haha.”

Another moment of contrite silence.

“I’ll go ask Makoto about that… ‘Plan B’ you were talking about,” Sayaka offers. “I can tell you what he says, then you could maybe go tell Gonta? That way you can talk to him in your own time, without Kokichi.”

It sounded like… the better option, Miu supposes. And there was no telling whether or not Kokichi would run back into the room, holding Gonta’s hand and demanding the two of them talk, for some reason. Maybe _they_ should talk. Because Miu is damn sure that Kokichi owes a few apologies to the entomologist. 

No matter how appealing it may or may not have sounded, Miu doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have an answer. She doesn’t know if she even wants to see Gonta again at this convention. Or ever. She’d be more than happy if she didn’t have to see any of them. 

Miu picks herself up suddenly, so suddenly that it causes Sayaka to twitch a little in shock, “Aaaannnyyyways, I’ve got shit to be doin’, lady. So if yer done proddin’ at me…”

Sayaka smiles very slightly, “Sure, Miu. Feel better.”

“Hm.”

The pop sensation pats her lightly on the head before she begins her own exit towards the door, her feet dragging and her expression almost blank. Miu watches her as she leaves, wiping at her eyes as soon as the pop sensation turns around, slapping a confident expression across her face once again to hide whatever sappy, unwanted emotions that were beginning to boil over the surface. Emotions that she will let fester in her chest and sit there until she dies.

Miu realizes once Sayaka leaves that she probably should get back to work. Her script was wide open, and it wouldn’t hurt for her to add a few notes here or there so she doesn’t forget what happened during this rehearsal. She could look over the lighting board a few more times and adjust the lighting cues until they’re refined and perfect. She could turn her laptop back on and talk to K1-B0 while she plays with the breaker coding a little more. Yeah. Talking with K1-B0 might be nice right now. Kaede always says that talking with people “always helps”, usually after her rather vague advice to “cheer up”. Talking with K1-B0 would be good. She’ll just go back to her laptop, and--

Miu turns around. It’s not there. Her laptop isn’t there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 37/40
> 
> kokichi and miu are going to have A Moment™ that makes all of this fighting worth it i SWEAR and i am SORRY 🙏🏻


	30. and like a cheshire cat, i think that you are just a grin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some people are really mean >:(

“The A major chord is on the second fret,” Kaito instructs, adjusting Himiko’s fingers. Her hands are tiny and can’t wrap around the guitar’s neck. “Just move ‘em to the D, G, and B strings…. Yeah. There you go! Now, strum!”

Himiko strums, but her index finger wasn’t long enough and it ended up pressing down on more strings than it intended to. The A major chord is muffled, but it sounded somewhat correct if you don’t know what a proper A major chord sounded like. Kaito smiles, obviously hiding back a wince.

“Hey, almost! You’ll get there,” He offers supportively.

Maki, who had been preoccupied with tossing a rubber ball between Tenko and Shuichi, turns towards Himiko with a raised eyebrow, “I don’t think acoustic is the same as a bass guitar.”

Himiko shrugs, “Ehh. Prob’ly not.”

“...So that renders this lesson useless.”

“It’s not _totally_ useless, Makiroll!” Kaito disagrees with a smile, accepting the guitar as the redhead passes it over. He immediately places his fingers over the correct frets and strums the A major chord. “Learning the guitar is fun.”

“Yeah, _Makiroll,”_ Himiko echoes. Maki eyes her sarcastically. “It’s _fun.”_

The side of Kaito’s eyes crinkle with a cheeky grin, “Say… don’t you have cheerleading practice to be--”

“Zip it,” Maki quickly interjects, catching the ball from Tenko before chucking it at Shuichi a little too roughly. The former detective grunts as he catches it against his chest.

Laughter ripples through the room. Shuichi joins in on the jubilant laughter, not-so-secretly rubbing at where he had been struck before tossing the ball, gently, to Tenko. The former aikido master, clad in workout attire and borrowed half-ballet flats, catches it with little difficulty. She’s sitting on the floor of Kaito and Maki’s hotel room, stretching her legs as well as playing catch. Maki sits across from her, also in gym gear, and has been wrestling her hair into a ponytail as well as tossing the rubber ball with one hand. The former assassin is late for practice.

Himiko exhales through her nose, collapsing backwards onto the bed with a pained grimace. Kaito’s face contorts with sympathy before he turns back to the guitar, plucking the opening notes to an unheard of yet nostalgic tune. The rubber ball gets tossed upwards towards the former mage, who rolls over to collect it before throwing it back to Shuichi.

“Have you found something else to do? ‘Sides cheerleading?” Himiko asks, nudging at the former astronaut with her heel.

“Judging some food,” He replies, pausing his guitar playing to answer. He begins strumming again, halts to say, “On Saturday. When the Talent Swap starts,” Then continues to play.

“All you're doing is rocking up and eating some food??” Tenko squints, catching the rubber ball and tossing it to Himiko.

Kaito stops playing again, lifting up his foot to show his bandaged injury. It was healing rather slowly, “I _wanted_ to do more, but they told me I couldn’t do much else with this--”

“Oh, _please,_ it’s just a tiny bruise!”

“...My ankle?? Is sprained??”

“What, are your arms sprained too? Did you sprain your _arms,_ Kaito?”

The former astronaut lifts his right leg and plops it inelegantly on the bed. Himiko has to scrunch her body inwards to avoid being crushed, “I am an injured man!! And it’s not like I _chose_ what I wanted to do, anyways! Some Future Foundation member signed me up. I wanted to swim.”

“Swim? ...With a sprained ankle?” Tenko deadpans. Kaito nods, beaming. The former aikido master turns slowly away, reaching over towards her left foot to continue stretching. “Maki, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think your boyfriend might be a bit of an idiot.”

“Hey!!”

A simple knock at the door interrupts them. Maki rolls herself off of the floor, tosses the rubber ball at Shuichi, and walks to answer it, all the while being accompanied by Kaito’s jubilant guitar playing. Maki opens the door to Kokichi, whose smile is visible but the rest of his expression rather weary. 

“Greeting, subordinates!” He waves half-heartedly, marching over towards the bed and collapsing face-first on top of it.

The room welcomes him into the room with low rumbles of ‘Hey’, sloppily throwing their hands in greeting. Shuichi tosses the rubber ball to him but it promptly bounces off of his back and onto the floor. Kaito chortles and strums a comical playoff. 

“What have you been up to?” The former detective asks, as Maki sighs and grabs for the ball. “We’re talking about the Swap.”

“Oh, yeah! I’ve already got a whole magic schtick going, Rantaro’s my assistant, yada yada,” Kokichi drones into the blanket. “Super fun and not boring at allllllllllll.”

“...As a former magician, I feel like I should take some offense to that…” Himiko mumbles.

The purple teenager lifts his head abruptly off of the bed, “Definitely. In fact, that was an insult aimed at you, specifically.”

Himiko childishly sticks out her tongue. Kokichi copies. The redhead snickers.

“Where have you been?” Shuichi continues, passing the rubber ball off to Tenko. “Not with your assistant, obviously, since Rantaro’s been with Season 52…”

The former supreme leader kicks his legs buoyantly behind him, “Just checking up on Miu!”

Shuichi’s eyebrows furrow in worry, “Kokichi, no.”

It’s almost as if the entire room just sighed in unison. Everybody knows that Kokichi and Miu being in the same room together just simply does not go well. It has been proven on many, many occasions.

“B-But I didn’t do anything…?” The purple teen warbles, lower lip wobbling with crocodile tears.

“Was there a reason?” Maki asks in a low monotone. Kokichi opens his mouth to speak, but she quickly cuts him off with a sharp, “A _good_ reason?”

Kokichi huffs, “Of course there was! I was accompanying my good friend Gonta! Remember? He wanted to talk to her?”

“Did _you_ have to join them?” The former assassin sighs.

“Gonta asked me too! I’m innocent, officer! Wh-Why is everybody ganging up on meeeeeeeee?”

“How’d it go?” Himiko hums.

Kokichi stares upwards at her for a very long moment. His face is frozen, almost as if he was debating whether or not lying at that moment would work at all. Everybody in the room was already convinced that Kokichi’s conversation with Miu did not go well, so it was up to the former supreme leader to give details about how horribly it actually went. Best case scenario: they saw each other, gave each other the stink eye, and parted ways. Worst case scenario: somebody’s dead. Kokichi did seem very much alive, which was probably a good sign.

The former supreme leader simpers, “Well.”

“Terribly,” Shuichi translates.

“Really, really well.”

“I think you should keep six feet away from Miu at all times,” Himiko suggests half-heartedly, raising her arms as if to give a visual. “I’ll carry a measuring tape.”

“Did Gonta get to apologize?” Tenko asks.

Kokichi turns to her and shakes his head. No, the former entomologist did not get to apologize. The room deflates slightly. Himiko is aware that Gonta really wanted to apologize, and has expressed it multiple times to the group in hopes that maybe they would help him, but everybody knew pretty well by now that Miu was not the type to get over things _that_ quickly. That, and Gonta’s will to apologize was very often overpowered by the sheer guilt of being in the same location as the former inventor. It was a fairly pitiful situation to any onlookers. 

And Kokichi being there definitely did not help him.

“She didn’t say anything about ‘Plan B’, Maki,” The former supreme leader continues. “I asked, and she ignored me… Like I was chopped liver….” The ball is thrown to him, and he throws it to Maki. “And her friend didn’t know anything, either…”

Maki releases a disappointed noise from behind her lips, tossing the rubber ball in her hands before throwing it to Himiko. The redhead fumbles with it. Curse her tiny hands…

“Did her friend seem nice?” Maki interrogates. She’s clearly scoping the enforcement team for any form of threat within their squad. 

Kokichi shrugs again, his eyes trailing the rubber ball as it flies between the occupants in the room, “Sayaka Maizono and Kazuichi Souda. Both of them were so _predictable._ But Miu seems to be best friends with Sayaka now, so let’s all give Miu three cheers for making a friend!”

“Sayaka Maizono… Do I know her?”

“Blue hair? Pop sensation? Tried to kill somebody? Are any of these ringing any bells?”

Maki squints at the phrase 'tried to kill somebody', but nothing much else is made out of it.

“...I don’t think these are… necessarily _bad_ people,” Shuichi comments cautiously. “But the concept of an ‘enforcement team’ just seems like it will cause trouble eventually.”

“Just keep an eye on them. It’s not like there’s much we can do about it,” Maki suggests with a brooding expression.

Maybe not. Himiko was certain that attempting to overrule the decision of both the armed enforcement team and Makoto (and by extension, Team Danganronpa) would not go smoothly. There really _wasn’t_ anything they could do about it, and it unnerves the redhead a little bit. It all felt so out of her hands, so out of her control. Miu had got into that team early, and the recruits seemed fairly solidified at this point. There’s no way the enforcement team would let new people flock to their group just because they have the power, now. Himiko hates how uncertain everything seemed, how little she knew about anybody on that team. She couldn’t place trust in complete strangers. And she definitely couldn’t place trust in Miu, the only teenager on the team, who has tried killing somebody before. 

The faster Himiko figures out the mysteries behind this convention, the sooner she can get everybody out of here. And the sooner everybody gets out, the less likely that enforcement team will try anything.

And if she can figure everything out before the time limit tomorrow, it means the possibility of the enforcement team choosing forty people will be lowered significantly. 

There is definitely pressure that’s beginning to fold on top of Himiko, as if she herself has to singlehandedly uncover everything suspicious about this convention before any of her friends get hurt. The stakes are high and the dread aches her bones. She desperately needs to compensate for this anxiety that threatens to tremble her by throwing herself at her next task. “Overcompensating for her nervousness by enthusiastically jumping into the next situation”, or whatever Korekiyo would say.

And Himiko still has Junko’s prescription bottle buried in her jacket.

“...So, we’ve got the enforcement team, _and_ the mastermind to worry about,” Shuichi mutters, mainly to himself. Himiko silently winces, a notion shared by many others in the room. “Not to mention a reason _why_ this is happening.”

“Maybe there isn’t a reason,” Maki suggests rather darkly, her gaze focused solely on Kaito’s fingers as he strums absent-mindedly at his guitar. “Maybe they just wanna see us kill each other again.”

The room falls back into uneasy silence, with Kaito soft strumming coming to a tense pause. Tenko clutches the rubber ball in her hands, her eyes distant and unfocused, contrasting Shuichi’s furrowed expression as the former detective stares out the window. Kokichi once again resumes lying facedown on the bed, erasing any possibility of reading his emotions. There’s a moment that passes where they all sit together in complete silence, sitting in solidarity of one another. 

Kaito’s eyebrows knit together, before he abruptly strums a striking chord on his guitar. It snaps everybody awake almost instantly. 

“Let’s not focus on the bad bits, yeah?” He attempts. His encouragement isn’t as confident or blindly optimistic as it was in the simulator, but it’s still a nice try. “We just gotta keep moving forward!”

Tenko hates agreeing with Kaito, as visible through a disgusted twitch through her nose, but she stands up to her feet, anyways. She’s restless to move, her feet shuffling as she tries to smile confidently, “Yeah! Yeah, we just have to stick together!”

“You’re so right, Tenko! All we have to do is stick together, and everything will be a-okay!” Kokichi chirps with oversaturated enthusiasm.

“...I don’t appreciate how fake that sounded.”

“No, no, you guys are right. We’re going to be fine, we just have to pull up our big boy pants and work hard!” Himiko adds, sitting herself upwards on the couch with a very slight intake of oxygen when a sharp pain stings at her back. “Eye of the tiger! Thrill of the fight!!”

“Right! Nice, Himiko!” Kaito compliments, reaching over to give the former mage a high-five. “We’ve got each other, okay? We’ve all got each other.”

Shuichi nods, his expression softening through his exhale and a noticeable tension being released in his shoulders. Maki nods along, powerless against her boyfriends spiels of having hope in each other and being friends, while Kokichi once again faceplants into the bed. Himiko bounces where she sits, patting her hands against her knees as she silently maps out the rest of her day. Maki notices instantly.

“You’re oddly chipper,” The former assassin comments, but can’t hide a tiny grin curling her cheeks upwards.

“Oh, yeah,” The redhead replies, and is nearly tempted to add _‘it won’t last long, though’,_ once she remembers that rather quick conversation with Korekiyo that morning. Did that conversation even happen? She was so pumped on adrenaline that she could probably convince herself it never happened if she tried hard enough. “Just… want to get things moving today!”

“Speaking of moving, I think you’re late to a practice, Makiroll…” Kaito teases with a repressed laugh.

The former assassin sighs so heavily it could knock over a building, “Yeah, yeah.”

The group shares a hearty laugh amongst each other once more as many of them walk towards practice or to one of the convention’s booths. Maki and Tenko chat amongst each other as they glide towards their rehearsals, and Kaito slowly limps (as much as he tries to hide his injury, it doesn’t do much) to find a group of buddies he had made. Shuichi shuffles away to practice with his band, playing invisible keys in front of him in an attempt to recall the music they were playing that day. Kokichi skips off, maybe to find Rantaro. But that theory was up in the air, since he didn’t have any magician stuff with him. None that Himiko could see, anyways, considering he wasn’t holding a bag or anything he could carry the props in.

The redhead searches the convention building, twirling the prescription bottle in her pocket.

-=+=-

When Himiko finds “Sakine”, she’s completely alone.

The “Ultimate Chess Player” has completely isolated herself at this point, only appearing in areas where absolutely nobody else was present. There’s a stark contrast between her bubbly, objectively social personality and the way she’s been standing off to the side this entire day, hovering in secluded areas and never making herself known. She's smart; She must have realized that making herself a presence in this hotel was only further strengthening the possibility of her identity being exposed. Now that two people know she’s Junko, it’s really only a matter of time before more people figure it out. And with the stress of this new killing game, it’s not bound to go smoothly.

Junko is just standing there, in the middle of the hallway, her back turned almost _too_ conveniently as she looks down at her phone. There’s a door wide open next to her, one that Himiko could only assume leads to the Ultimate Fashionista’s hotel room. 

It would be so easy. All Himiko needs to do is walk forward, “accidentally” bump into her to throw off her sense of cohesion, slip the prescription bottle back into her pocket, and scurry off to never be seen again. It was supposed to be so easy.

Himiko tells herself this, chanting self-encouragements as she marches forward without stopping. No stopping, only forward. If she keeps saying this over and over, it will eliminate the doubt that’s settled permanently into the back of her brain and threatens to overpower. Her footsteps are silent, quietly cunning and further assisting her as she lurches forward to return the prescription bottle.

Junko is faster. 

Himiko bumps into the girl, but as soon as she does, “Sakine” grabs her by the arm and shoves her into the open hotel room. The redhead stumbles over her own feet, tripping into the room as Junko follows and shuts the door behind her. The redhead had a rather sinking feeling that she was in trouble once the Ultimate Fashionista locked it.

Himiko _really_ knew she was in trouble once she noticed Korekiyo sitting wide-eyed on the chair next to them.

The former anthropologist immediately rises to his feet, his yellow eyes glancing between Junko and the now-panicking Himiko. The redhead can feel her heart drop into her toes. Her adrenaline-high crashes almost instantly, dread rushing through her veins and down her spine, tensing her shoulders in complete fear. Oh, they’re in for it now. Oh, god, they’ve been found out. Both of them have. Both of them are going down together.

Is this how Himiko dies? Is _this_ how Himiko dies?? Everything is starting to settle in, now. She knows she’s done something wrong, but she did something wrong to the _worst person on earth,_ to somebody who _ended society_ as they knew it in that simulator. The situation is crushing her at once. It pushes the air out of her lungs until she can’t breath in oxygen anymore, chills her in place. Himiko needs to act calm, needs to get rid of the prescription bottle still in her pocket or pretend to be flustered and angry about “Sakine” throwing her into some random room, but she just can’t. She’s freezing. Himiko needs to _do_ something, for her _and_ Korekiyo, but she just can’t _._

Himiko needs to act fast, but she _can’t move._

Junko fiddles with the lock before flipping around so abruptly that it causes both teenagers to flinch. Her expression is cold, no trace of her usual chirpiness visible. A frown replaces the grin she used to wear so constantly, her eyebrows lowered and her nostrils flared.

 _“Leave me alone,”_ She demands viciously.

Himiko’s mouth instantly dries, and her next words are so shaky that she nearly hisses at how pathetic she sounds, “Wh-What?”

Junko extends her hand sharply towards the former mage, who can only tremble in response, “Give it to me. Now.”

Himiko doesn’t have to ask what she was looking for. The prescription bottle jingles in her jacket’s pocket and practically weighs her down to the floor. The redhead very barely manages to fake a confused expression, but the rest of her stays still as her hands vibrate.

 _“Now!”_ Junko snaps.

The hairs on the back of the redhead’s neck shoot up, terror spiking through her stomach and causing her to frantically reach into her pocket and grab the bottle. With shaky hands, she quickly extends the stolen item towards the fashionista. Junko swipes it from her ferociously, squinting at the bottle and bringing it closer to her face, intensely checking if any of the modules had been taken. Korekiyo is dead silent next to Himiko, which only causes the redhead to tremble further.

Junko realizes how none of the pills are gone, very subtly softening her expression with an enraged sigh. A smile twitches back up her face, this time incredibly sharp and quavering with fury.

“Okay, _guys._ Care to explain why the _fuck_ you keep following me around?” She hisses behind a clenched jaw. 

“I-It was his idea!” Himiko immediately yips, pointing at the frazzled Korekiyo with a trembling finger. The former anthropologist gestures in confusion, but Himiko’s kindness crushes her before the act continues any longer. “O-Okay, that’s not true. I-It wasn’t at all, it was all my idea! He w-wasn’t even involved!! S-S-So if you’re gonna kill me--” In the middle of her rushed speech, she extends her arms outwards in surrender. “--do it quick--!!”

“What?” Junko recoils, her eyes still squinted in anger. “What the hell are you _talking_ about!?”

“Ah, you see… Let me explain,” Korekiyo starts slowly, obviously trying to come up with _some_ sort of excuse as he steps protectively in front of the vibrating Himiko. “...W-Well, you see--”

“Do you think I’m some sort of idiot?” The fashionista asks. Her tone is nothing like that valley-girl she had been playing as the rest of this convention. It’s darker, her pitch lower. “Do you really think you could sneak around like rats and _not_ expect me to catch on?”

“No, no, not at all, Junko, you see--”

Korekiyo slaps his hand over his mask. He just said her name. They hadn’t told her they knew who she was. 

This is where Himiko dies. She can feel it in her bones. Everybody in the room is frozen, so still that they could be mistaken as dead statues. The redhead wasn’t even trembling any more, making intense eye contact at her shoes as she clamps her mouth shut, gnawing viciously at her bottom lip. She could only assume that Korekiyo felt the exact same petrifying fear over such a _tiny_ mistake, over such a _tiny_ slip of the tongue. Himiko nearly feels the violent urge to slap herself in the head with how _dumb_ she had been, how impulsive and stupid she had acted and how _useless_ and _idiotic_ and _helpless_ she was being right now. It’s like her brain and body just couldn’t react to a fight or flight situation normally. Both of them just look at a noticeably tense situation and collectively decide to take a nap.

Junko’s face is unreadable, almost completely blank. She’s probably staring at Korekiyo, but Himiko’s gaze is glued permanently to the ground and refuses to look up, removing any possibility that the redhead returns eye contact with the brunette. Himiko is terrified. They did _not_ think this far. What if Junko _was_ more involved in this convention than they thought? The redhead just got both herself, _and_ Korekiyo killed. Oh, god, she’s messed up _royally._ She can feel her heartbeat in her fingertips. Her anxiety is elevating everything tenfold. It’s probably not even _that_ big of a deal--

The Ultimate Fashionista points her finger at Korekiyo. She then jabs it at Himiko, who is forced to look up at it.

“If you tell _anybody--”_ She starts darkly. Junko takes another moment to inhale and exhale, trying very, very hard not to scream and alert other people. Her fingers curl inwards, almost like she was strangling the air. “Who else knows?”

“Nobody,” Both teenagers answer at the same time, one more shaky than the other.

The Ultimate Fashionista stands upright, face still hardened for a long pause. Her breathing is heavy, very audibly embittered, rage seeping through even within the wordless portions of the conversation. Himiko grips tightly at the bottom of her shirt, but can still feel her nails digging into her palms.

Junko giggles.

It’s really confusing at first to Himiko, who usually only associates giggling with being happy. At least for herself, anyways, considering she couldn’t imagine genuinely laughing when she was upset or angry. Others, like Kokichi or maybe Angie, often confuse the redhead with what their actual feelings were, considering both of them have this habit of smiling very frequently despite tense situations. So when Junko giggles, tittering despite being immensely angry just a few seconds ago, Himiko allows her shoulders to lower just slightly. Korekiyo was still frozen completely still, noticeable beads of sweat running down his forehead, but Himiko’s eye level started to slowly rise until it met Junko’s striking light blue eyes. She’s not wearing contacts anymore. Staring into her eyes sends a sharp chill down Himiko’s spine.

“This is so cute, actually,” Junko chirps, rapping her chipped nails on her cane. “Sherlock Holmes and his tiny, tiny assistant!”

Even though she was terrified, Himiko’s nose still twitches in annoyance, “...Hey…”

“W-We really hadn’t meant--” Korekiyo tries. He’s nervous, as well. His eyes dart everywhere, never maintaining eye contact. Very similar to how he acted during a certain trial, Himiko might add. “...Any harm.”

There wasn’t much either of them could say. They _were_ snooping around and they _were_ trying to figure out what Junko’s intentions were. And then Himiko made it worse by impulsively stealing her personal property. If somebody else had done that to the former magician, she would be just as mad. Himiko felt even _worse_ knowing that it was reasonable. Junko had a very justifiable reason to be mad at them, and it made the redhead feel awful.

“No, I totally get it, yeah?” Junko’s bright tone is returning, but this time there’s something sinister behind it. Something in-genuine and acidic. “Both of you are scared and confused, and you think that finding out the _big bad guy_ behind all of this will make you the hero, or give you redemption, or _something._ I’m sure there’s some real cutsey barf-fest of a motive behind it all.”

Korekiyo’s gaze shifts over and meets Himiko’s for a very brief second. If there was a motive behind Korekiyo joining this team, he hasn’t made it clear. All Himiko knew was that she cornered him in a vent and made him join her for her own selfish pursuit.

Himiko sighs internally. Even her thoughts were frail and warbling. This really _was_ all her fault.

“But I don’t take too kindly to you, like, totally snooping up my ass,” She continues, her words clipped and venomous. “It’s a real invasion of privacy, y’know? I’m just trying to have a nice time at this super cool convention, like anybody else here. I am trying to be nice. So I’d _appreciate it_ if you left me the _fuck_ alone. Okay?” Junko tweets. She pauses. Neither the redhead nor the former anthropologist answer her. _“Okay?”_

Both teenagers nod quickly. 

Junko emits a content hum, “Good! ‘Cuz you guys seem super chill, and I’d hate to make this convention any more…”

Her words drift as her gaze falls back to Himiko, who cowers under her stare. Junko had very intentionally looked over at the former mage, making damn sure the redhead was staring back before continuing with a low, threatening tone.

“... _complicated_ for you,” She finishes. Her head tilts to the side almost condescendingly, her body leaning slightly forward so that she towers over the smaller teenager. “Understand?”

It’s the first time in a while that Himiko has courage to speak up, the question trembling on her lips, “Wh-What’s that supposed to mean?”

Even Korekiyo was beginning to look over with narrowed eyes, obviously recognizing the infliction of the word ‘complicated’ as a threat from the brunette. Junko’s gaze flickers very briefly over to him, before she returns to an upright position and begins to make her way towards the exit. With little grace, she flings the door open and stands in front of the open door, gesturing for the two teenagers to make their exit. Hesitantly, Korekiyo begins to follow this unspoken instruction. Himiko wavers behind, her brain still processing the events at hand.

Junko turns back to her with a chipper sigh, as if the conversation had never happened. Her attitude returns all at once, and it was almost as if she was never angry at them in the first place.

“Aw man, Koko. I really wish we could’ve been friends,” She laments with a smile. “That would’ve made things so much easier for you.”

Himiko starts to exit, knowing that staying in that hotel room would only bring more unfortunate things towards her. Her footsteps are light but frail, her legs shaky as she pushes herself a little too frantically out of the room. She looks like a baby deer learning how to walk.

Junko struts up to the door. Her expression has withered, now, and her smile looks tired. Almost as if the situation bored her to the point where she’s saddened by it.

“Don’t tell anybody about this conversation. I know who your friends are,” Junko says warily, slowly closing the door. She moves her head with it, making sure her gaze locks onto Himiko until the door is completely shut. She raises her left hand, wiggling her fingers in a gentle wave. “Bye-bye! And let’s not see each other again, okay? I think we can both manage.”

“Mmhmm,” Is all Himiko can choke out.

‘Sakine’ grins from ear to ear, “It’s just one week, yeah?”

And with that eerie recall of their first conversation, Junko closes and locks the door.

Himiko releases a breath so large that it was almost as if she just pushed all of the oxygen out of herself. And for a second, it feels like she had. She doesn’t breathe for a solid eight count. She just stares at the closed door, processing the situation. 

Did that just happen? Did that just _happen?_

Korekiyo shifts slightly and Himiko is very abruptly reminded that she needs to breathe, which she does so painfully. Her lungs punch against her ribcage and her back screams in pained agony, heartbeat still rapidly accelerating. The former anthropologist grabs her attention with a gesture for them to walk away from the hotel room, which Himiko follows quickly, desperate to run away from whatever the hell just happened.

Both teenagers are silent as they run directly into the elevator, except for the loud breathing as they both catch the breath they had been holding in for the duration of that conversation. 

Himiko has gotten them in so much trouble. She just wanted to help, and _look_ how far that’s gotten her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 37/40


	31. everyone makes mistakes! (i've had more than my share!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a tense chat, a tense decision, and missing items

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dab

“...So…” Korekiyo starts, pausing to clear his throat. “Thoughts?”

There is nothing in Himiko’s head but loud noise.

She’s still staring forward at the closed elevator doors, rocking between the balls of her feet and her heels, nose twitching and eyebrows furrowed. She’s not sure how she’s feeling, but she knows it's heavy. This feeling is sinking deep into her stomach, down her throat and into her gut, making her nauseous and lightheaded. She feels sick. She feels frail. Like a gust of wind could knock her over.

She feels… responsible. Yeah, that’s it. That must be it.

Well, she _knows_ she’s responsible. Everything is her fault. She was impulsive and abrasive and stupid, so now she has to face the consequences of her own actions. Himiko knows that, and she understands that. And she feels terrible. 

The elevator was doing her no favors. It’s congested. There’s nowhere to disappear to. It sucks being in this tiny box, where Korekiyo can very clearly observe as she beats herself up emotionally.

Himiko’s self confidence is a flimsy thing. She’s always had to deal with it being unstable, especially considering all of the prewritten drama that had been shoved onto her by a certain company. Hell, she’s dealt with it for as long as her fake backstory goes. It’s a long, aching journey to push herself over that hurdle, but it's so, so easy to knock Himiko off of her tiny pedestal again. She’s reached the bottom before, she has _definitely reached that bottom,_ and she’s trying to pick herself back up with everything her weak heart could muster. But she just keeps toppling over. Tripping over her own shoes. Diving headfirst, knowing damn well that it was _her_ who caused this descent. Knowing that she’s the one at fault just makes everything so, _so_ much worse.

It’s gotta be over, now. Junko knows what they’ve been up to, and has made it very clear that any further snooping won’t do her any good. Himiko has set a massive target on both her back, _and_ Korekiyo’s back. Korekiyo, who she had dragged onto this team by using her own girlfriend against him, by exploiting a past that he probably despises. Korekiyo, who had not asked her to steal the Ultimate Despair’s property. Korekiyo, who was now under fire from Junko simply through association. Himiko has screwed everything up. 

She’s set three days worth of work back to zero, with no progress in sight. Was progress even worth it at this point? Was searching for an answer even _safe_ now, with the Ultimate Despair keeping a watchful eye over them? She’s screwed everything up. Himiko was just threatened. Her life could be on the line, and Korekiyo’s life could be as well. She’s screwed everything up. God damnit, she’s screwed _everything up._

Himiko slaps herself in the forehead with the heel of her hand. Then again. Then again, but harder.

“Um…” Korekiyo ad-libs, staring at the scene meekly from aside. “...While I understand this is not the most ideal situation to have been placed in--”

“Stupid. Eurrgh, I’m just so--!” Himiko looks up at the former anthropologist, expression dripping with regret. “I’m…. nyeh, I’m _so_ sorry. I wasn’t thinking… I should have… thought… smarter! Or been smarter! Or-- _Ugh!”_

“Don’t torture yourself over it, really-- I… had made a very stupid mistake, myself,” His face scrunches at his recalled his blunder, eyebrows crinkling in regret. “And for that, I apologize. I should have… thought before I spoke.”

 _“I_ should have thought before--” She pauses mid-sentence, the words faltering at her lips. Everything feels icky and she can’t communicate it effectively. Her hands curl around the air and her arms flail in awkward anger. _“Eugh!”_

“You seem angry,” Korekiyo says calmly, naming the emotion.

“...I _am_ angry,” Himiko agrees. “But not at-- I’m just angry at myself.”

“Alright. Let’s stop what we’re doing and take a deep breath.”

It was a solid idea that was definitely meant more for Himiko than it was for Korekiyo. No matter who it was intended for, however, the former anthropologist still plays along, inhaling and exhaling in slow rhythm. Himiko copies with her eyes closed, focusing on her breathing instead of the congested air of the elevator. It settles some things. Slows a lot of her thoughts down.

Korekiyo repeats that exercise for probably the fifth time before he continues, “So. Quite a few things went… wrong--”

“A lot of things went _wrong…”_ Himiko sighs, suddenly droopy and noticeably wary again. She drags her hands down her face. “I-- _Ugh,_ I screwed up everything by taking the bottle and then I couldn’t even _return it correctly…_ So much for being a _magician--”_

“Well, to be fair to you, I assume it’s been a while since you practiced magic--”

“And now I’ve made her _mad…_ And I’ve screwed everything up and I’m so…” She exhales heavily again, rubbing at her eyes with her hands. There’s a word she wants to use, _useless,_ a word that bangs against her skull, but she slowly chooses another phrase. “...Not helpful. At all.”

Korekiyo stares at her for a moment, collecting his thoughts before he returns his attention to the elevator doors. 

“I am… so sorry, again. For stating her name,” He apologizes silently. “And I did not make it any better afterwards. I should have… said more, so to say, especially after the threat,” His head tilts to the side, almost as if he was lost in thought. “I suppose I was slightly startled--”

 _“Slightly?_ I nearly peed my pants,” Himiko slurs.

A pause, “...Therefore, I don’t think you should place all of the blame solely on yourself. If anything, we’re both to blame.”

It didn’t feel like it. Korekiyo made a mistake. Himiko made a decision, however brash and impulsive. Still, the former anthropologist was trying to shift some of the blame off of her shoulders. It was appreciated, however ineffective it was.

“...Now what?” Himiko asks from behind her hands. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do anymore… It just seems so… useless to try now.”

“Actually, Himiko, if I may disagree-- this is _exactly_ when we should push forward,” Korekiyo says, turning himself towards her. “This gives us quite a bit to work with, actually. This might even be something we should talk to Makoto about.”

“No. No, I don’t think we should. I-I don't know what she’ll do if we tell more people…” Himiko swallows roughly. “She said she knows who I’m friends with… O-Oh, man, what if I’ve dragged all of _them_ into this as well…?”

Korekiyo hums, “...Yes. She did mention that, didn’t she?”

“Korekiyo, this is serious! I-I-I’m _scared_ to keep digging through this!! I really-- I really think we need to drop this whole… investigation thing,” The redhead objects, throwing her hands back down to her sides. “I should never have… I shouldn’t have _tried._ I was just threatened by _Junko…_ Somebody _else_ threatened me through _Tenko--”_ Her lips curl in confused indignation and she can’t help but gesture wildly. “Why am I so easy to threaten!?!”

“Lacking physical strength and close personal connections,” The former anthropologist answers seriously, before realizing it was more of a rhetorical question than anything.

Himiko squints at him, “Thanks.”

The elevator dings and the doors open, revealing the first floor once again. With one look at his wristwatch, Korekiyo makes it clear that it was about time for lunch. With a location in mind, the pair begin unconsciously moving towards the dining hall. 

“...I still have my doubts that she’s even remotely correlated with all of this,” The former anthropologist admits. “It just feels very… predictable.”

“...I don’t know. I-I don’t really… want to take that chance.”

“Ah, so that’s it then? We’re just… dropping this whole thing?”

 _We?_ The word implies that if Himiko gives up, then Korekiyo would follow in her footsteps. It made only a little sense, considering how this team was her own, adrenaline-induced idea. But the fact that its survival, and the search to uncover this hotel’s mysteries, rested pretty solely on her shoulders felt almost wrong. She didn’t really _feel_ like the leader type.

She stammers at first, lost for a definitive answer, “I dunno… maybe…? I don’t _want_ to-- I-I mean, this whole thing has been pretty fun, and I’d probably go insane if I didn’t have this whole thing to distract myself with…” That was true; if Himiko wasn’t occupied with this mystery-solving thing she probably would have spiraled herself into a fit. “But it’s not safe. And it’s… not safe for my friends, either.”

Korekiyo nods, emitting another somewhat sorrowful hum from behind his mask. Neither of them talk, but their silence speaks louder than words. It was not an ideal situation. At all. Himiko didn’t want to disband this team. For a moment there, she had actually felt _intelligent,_ like she was helping people by searching for answers. She was being adventurous and courageous, something very out of character for her, and she was _maybe_ making a friend. Maybe. Very, very maybe. Don’t quote her on that.

But now she was starting to curl in on herself again. She sees a threat and begins retreating immediately in on herself, cancelling all plans even if they aren’t related to the danger. If Junko says to stop following her, then Himiko will raise that request tenfold and shut down all investigation of the hotel. It was an exaggerated response, probably because of the exaggerated situation at hand. Himiko tried, failed, and was now sprinting in the opposite direction before she could face the consequences. 

Himiko didn’t want to dismantle this team. She really was starting to grow comfortable in Korekiyo’s company. It was a nice change from the tense atmosphere.

She doubts Korekiyo wants to dismantle it either, but there is no way to tell.

“Hm,” Is how the former anthropologist replies. “Well… While there is more to investigate not concerning Junko, I can see how the threat has diverted your interest. In that case--”

He stops and turns. Himiko copies. Without missing a beat, Korekiyo extends his right hand formally. It’s not covered in excessive bandages and has this oddly fascinating gold ring on the index finger.

“It’s been nice,” The boy expresses genuinely. 

It almost shocks Himiko, for some reason. Not the politeness, but rather how easily he was willing to end it. Maybe the redhead was expecting a bit of resistance. Perhaps the opposing side of her brain wanted him to fight this decision, wanted him to try a little harder to argue for this team’s survival. But this was Korekiyo she was talking about, who probably didn’t feel it was in his place to demand or be overtly disagreeable.

There’s hesitance written across her face, hesitance in her eyes as they stare at Korekiyo’s hand. Her own hand it raised close to her chest, like she had started to extend it but had quickly recoiled. Korekiyo notices this, almost as if expecting it.

“No?” He asks.

“Why am _I_ making all the decisions…. I really don’t know anymore…” The redhead whines. _“You_ call it. You’re the brains.”

“But…” There was an inflection in his voice that perhaps implied a smile. “...Your business management skills?”

Himiko flashes another sarcastic look, but her lips purse in a repressed grin. Korekiyo nods his head to the side as his hand falls back to his side.

“...We’d have to be careful,” The redhead whispers, almost as if she was worried someone would hear her.

“We would.”

“If she really _was_ behind all of this, she’d have cameras and all that…”

“Probably,” He agrees. “... I’m not entirely sure _why_ I’m so insistent on this, but I truly believe she doesn’t have a role in this convention.”

“You _are_ insistent on that,” Himiko nods. Korekiyo shrugs, almost casually. “...I want you to decide. I don’t want to… force you to do anything.”

Another pause. People pass by them as they stare at each other, thinking this decision over very, very carefully. If Korekiyo was thinking about it, it sure wasn’t visible in his face. Again, definitely amplified by the mask. 

There was a part of Himiko that didn’t want to let this investigation go just yet. It scared her, that was for sure. This whole ordeal scared her a whole ton. She’s angry and inbittered, not solely out of indignation but rather at herself, for letting these things slip out of her hands and down to the floor. But she can’t just give up this easily, right? That’s not what Kaede would do, or Shuichi, or Tenko or Kaito or Maki. That’s not what somebody stronger than her would do. Even in the face of adversity, she was supposed to keep moving forward, right? Right? Even if she had to push the threat against her own life and possibly even her friend’s lives under the rug? Even if that meant maintaining this team with a Korekiyo, who has hurt her own friends--?

Oh, god. She’s completely forgotten about that. She’s _completely_ forgotten about that. Himiko can’t focus on that right now, she _really_ can’t delve into _that_ territory. There’s a whole suitcase of issues that is just sitting there, waiting for her to unpack them, but Himiko simply can not even _bear_ to look at it. Not right now. One thing at a time. The main issue is Junko, and whether or not the Red/Blue/ _Whatever_ Team should continue to _try_ despite being threatened to cease. And who knows how empty that threat was.

Korekiyo shifts, bobbing his head back and forth as his gaze falls up towards the ceiling. Himiko looks up as well, but doesn’t find anything.

“There was something she mentioned that resonated with me… Though, I am positive it was more of an insult, than anything,” Korekiyo starts slowly. His voice drifts, almost as if he was talking to himself. “I believe it was some way through the conversation, when she said it… ‘We think that finding out the big bad guy behind all of this will make us the hero, or give us some kind of redemption’...”

His words are so floaty that it was almost as if he forgot Himiko was there for a moment. He was simply thinking out loud. Korekiyo doesn’t even finish his sentence, instead letting the words trail. Himiko can only stand there, a little bit awkwardly, wondering what led to his final decision as he extends his hand again.

“There’s more to investigate,” Korekiyo decides, almost uncertainly. He almost immediately backtracks. “...But I completely understand if you feel it is not safe for you to continue--”

“No. No, we need to do this,” Himiko says, slapping her hand into his with a formal shake. She’s trying to convince herself, she realizes. “We need… to do this.”

The handshake was still continuing. The former magician’s eyes are unfocused to the point where Korekiyo’s eyebrows start to furrow, almost as if he felt bad.

“You don’t have to do this--” He starts.

“No, I want to.”

“...Tenko and Angie would be incredibly angry, and I wouldn’t want to--”

“Nope. It’s too late. I’m already shaking your hand.”

Korekiyo starts to nod, keeping in rhythm with the handshake. Himiko can’t shake this insufferable feeling of dread that’s seeping deep in her stomach, can’t get rid of this falling sensation that is crashing over her. She’s moving forward, but somehow backwards at the same time. 

She just wants to do the right thing. This was the right thing, right?

“...This wasn’t entirely your fault,” Korekiyo hums. “I understand you’re still conflicted about that.”

“Feels like it,” Himiko mumbles, dropping her hand back to her side. “But yeah. Alright. We just gotta find… something else to focus on. And be careful,” They have many people to avoid. Junko, Tenko, Angie, the real mastermind, possibly a new enforcement team, anybody who might be making a kill list-- “...Let me think about this. You think about this, also.”

“I will do that,” Korekiyo complies.

There’s another pause that passes between them. Neither of them were too excellent at conversation.

It’s ickiness that Himiko feels. She can’t describe it. She just can’t convey how she’s feeling.

“...Let’s just eat lunch,” The redhead sighs.

“Right.”

-=+=-

“Fucking-- _Where the hell is it!?”_

Miu stomps up the aisle, ducking her head aggressively under chairs and peeking over rows. Her march is so powerful and outwardly vicious that many members of the enforcement team scurry out of her way so that she’s able to check under their seats. No matter how hard she looks, it’s just not there. Her laptop is just _not there._

She’s checked fucking _everywhere,_ checked in so many locations that it’s beginning to seriously piss her off. Miu turned the lighting booth upside down trying to locate her laptop, before taking Sayaka’s advice to ‘retrace her footsteps’, as if she had lost her laptop anywhere else that morning. Miu was desperate to find it, so she left the lighting booth behind and returned to her bedroom, to the Iris Ballroom and to the dining hall, flipping furniture upside down with agitated huffs. Sayaka trailed behind, helping to the best of her ability, rationally attempting to calm the former inventor down. But even the pop sensation knew that if the laptop wasn’t in the lighting booth, it was very unlikely that it would show up anywhere else. 

They regrouped in the Iris Ballroom, tracking down a few members who didn’t seem all too busy to help with locating the stolen item. But no matter how many people helped, the laptop just wasn’t there. It just wasn’t there. 

It was stolen. And Miu had a very, _very_ good idea of who could have stolen it.

“Th-That-- That slap-dick, board-ass, lying little-- Little _shrimp--!!”_ She hisses almost incoherently, pushing herself up from her knees so that her head pokes up from behind a row of chairs. Sayaka winces at her sympathetically from the stage. “Him _and_ that critterfucker--!!!”

“Miu, I’m sure you’ve just… misplaced it--” The Ultimate Pop Sensation tries, but her voice warbles in uncertainty and it’s incredibly visible that even she doubts it.

The former inventor slams her hands against the chair in front of her, pushing herself up to her feet, “Sayaka, you don’t understand! I-I _need_ that laptop, it’s really all I’ve got going… for me at this goddamn--” She tries checking under the chair again, as if the laptop would magically appear. It does not. “A-A-And Kokichi just...! He just _took_ it from me…!?”

“This whole search is pointless… The laptop’s not gonna be here. ‘Specially if it went missing in the lighting booth,'' Fuyuhiko inputs. It’s the first time he’s spoken since joining the tiny group of girls in their search. He had recognized how pointless this whole ordeal was a long time ago.

“Maybe we should talk to Kokichi about it,” Sayaka suggests. Even she’s growing angry. It seems that their conversation back in the lighting booth has struck some sort of chord against the former supreme leader. “He’d have to give it back if we confront him--”

“Yeah! I’ll rock him up a little bit!” Akane offers, cupping her hands around her mouth so that she's audible even from where she was standing at the opposite end of the room. She’s sitting in one of the chairs, right leg crossed over the other. She had started looking for the stolen item, but grew unfocused and distracted very easily. “Hold his legs and shake ‘em till the laptop falls out of his pants! Like a cartoon!”

“... I was thinking more of a _verbal_ confrontation…”

“No. No, he’s not like that, Sayaka. He’s the most insufferable piece of shit in that class,” Miu retorts, checking down the row of chairs one last time before stomping irately down the stairs. “God, this fucking _blows!!_ Wh-Why does the worst shit always happen to the hot, popular girl!?!?”

Sayaka exhales in amusement, a contrite smile rising up her face as Miu joins her in the middle, “I’m sure we’ll find it. I’ll keep looking for it until we do, okay?”

Miu appreciates it, but of course she doesn’t say it out loud. She only exhales, almost defeated, “I-I just… _K1-B0’s_ on there... and I really miss--”

“What’s a K1-B0?” Akane calls from afar. Miu squints at her.

Sayaka shakes her head at the former gymnast before returning her gaze towards the former inventor, placing both hands on the strawberry blonde’s shoulders. It stabilizes Miu, in a way, “Do you have a laptop tracker, maybe? Anything on your phone?”

“No.”

“Do any of your friends have it, maybe…?”

Miu deflates in defeat, “Why would they--? Why would they have it?”

“Wait, guys, seriously. What’s K1-B0?” Akane repeats, trailing down the stairs to meet the pair onstage. “This is the first time I’m hearing about this.”

The gymnast was tracked down right before she headed to swim practice, leaving her in a bright red swimsuit underneath a navy blue track-jacket and shorts. A tactical gun belt is wrapped around her waist, her handgun strapped tightly in its right pocket. There’s masking tape applied to the top of the weapon. Written on it, in bold sharpie, is ‘AKANE’, making it very clear that the firearm is the gymnast’s and the gymnast’s alone.

Miu should have done that with her fucking laptop… 

“Okay… Should I… ask Makoto about that, as well?” Sayaka tries, as a very last attempt to help. “He’s already coming here to talk to me about the forty person thing…”

“He’s already about to implode from the inside out. Leave that fuckin’ man alone,” Miu waves away. “I’ve just gotta… sucker-punch Kokichi in the nuts a few times, th-that’s all…”

“Alright, is anybody gonna tell me what K1-B0 is, or am I gonna sit here like a dumbass?” Akane demands, face scrunched cluelessly inwards. Sayaka huffs at her language.

“You already do that,” Fuyuhiko mutters as he also joins the group, laptop-less.

Akane scowls, “What’s got you all cranky, Baby Gangsta?”

The nickname takes the former inventor by so much surprise that she snorts, quickly slapping her hand over her mouth so that nobody could hear her flippantly cackling. She has to shake herself back into the hissy fit that she was having, slapping the grin off of her face and replacing it with a stingy frown.

“This is serious!” She snaps, despite being the only one to laugh at Fuyuhiko.

“Akane, K1-B0 is really important to Miu,” Sayaka explains. The strawberry blonde sputters as if the pop sensation had placed words in her mouth, but it’s true, deep down, so Miu can’t say much. “It’s on her laptop, and that’s why we’re looking for it.”

“I am going to _split_ _Kokichi in half,”_ Miu declares childishly, crossing her arms with a petty grumble.

“Hell yeah!” Akane nods, socking her right fist into her left palm. “Who’s Kokichi?"

“D-Doesn’t matter, cuz I’m gonna kick his _ass_ for wiping his grubby little hands all over my personal property!!”

Sayaka considers her next words for a moment, but ultimately replies with a tired sigh and a shrug. There’s not much parenting she can do.

Makoto Naegi arrives as soon as lunch officially begins, avoiding the trip to the dining hall to instead poke his head into the Iris Ballroom. It’s the first time Miu has seen him since the… _incident_ concerning the florist and the astrologist from Season 52. He’s once again in his proper black dress pants and a white button-up shirt, albeit slightly wrinkled. He probably slept in it. That is if he slept at all. The purple bags that were beginning to grow more prominent under his eyes definitely told a different story. Byakuya stands by his side, and it sounded like they’ve been talking the whole way here. Miu’s head shoots in their direction as soon as they enter.

“Sayaka… hello!” The Ultimate Hope greets warily. He turns to the rest of the group with a polite, “Hey, guys!”

“What is happening here?” Byakuya asks coldly, squinting at Fuyuhiko, who was on his knees and searching behind a curtain.

Sayaka moves forward to greet the Future Foundation members at the doorway, “Oh, Miu lost something, so we’re all looking for it--”

Against the pop sensation's wishes, Miu _also_ rushes forward to greet the startled Future Foundation members, speaking over Sayaka, “I didn’t lose shit!! You wanna know what happened?” She reaches Makoto, face riddled with so much fury that it causes the Ultimate Hope to recoil backwards. “In fact, you want a fucking AHL member to add to your list!? _Kokichi Ouma,_ hear that!? Write that shit down!”

 _“Woah,_ let’s-- Um--”

“...Kokichi Ouma?” Makoto parrots, making it clear that he’s listened to Miu’s suggestion. He half-heartedly raises his hand, mapping out a height that clipped Kokichi’s actual height by about a foot. _“...That_ Kokichi Ouma?”

“Yes. Him,” Miu agrees sharply. “Get his ass!!”

“Actually, I’ve got my own questions about the AHL,” Akane inputs, starting another line of dialogue as many speak under her. “Are we supposed to be doing more about--?”

Sayaka was waiting for a pause in the conversation, but upon realizing she won’t be getting it she butts in over the others, “I wanted to talk to you about this ‘Plan B’ I’ve been hearing about, and I was wondering if the Mondo had said anything to you before all of this--”

“Uh, well--” Makoto’s head was flipping rapidly in different directions, trying to absorb everybody’s dialogue at once. More than one person was attempting to talk to him to the point where everybody’s voices melded into one, loud noise. “Well, that’s very--”

“Everybody, _please._ Let’s not be _animals,”_ Byakuya demands loudly on Makoto’s behalf. “One at a time.”

“Y-You callin’ me an animal, Daddy Long Legs!?” Miu hisses.

Byakuya’s eyes narrow condescendingly, “Be quiet.”

“Buy my silence, _bitch!!”_

“Right. Sayaka, would you mind joining me for a walk?” Makoto asks timidly. “I have to be somewhere, and it would just be a whole lot easier for me if we could have this talk on the move.”

“Of course,” The pop sensation agrees, although the twitch in her lips implied that this wasn’t the most favorable outcome for her.

“Hey… I’ve still got things to ask!” The Ultimate Gymnast complains, gesturing in irritation. Miu nods in agreement next to her, blindly backing her argument up.

Makoto blinks at her, still backing up towards the door, “Right! I’ll try to get back to you, I--” 

In the middle of his sentence, Makoto’s eyes drift, very subtly, towards the belt around Akane’s waist. It was one of those moments where if you blink, you’d miss it, but it was very clear to Miu that his apprehension to speak with the gymnast came from the firearm. The same firearm she had used to shoot somebody just yesterday. His mouth continued to move, but his rapid glance at the gun was already so telling that he might as well not even continued to make his excuse.

“I’ll get back to you,” He finishes.

Despite not being incredibly emotionally savvy, Akane was still one of the only people who caught Makoto’s gaze faltering. Her own eyes fall to her right hip, her hand lifting to reveal the belt fully, her eyebrows furrowing in deep thought. Her expression unfocuses, her eyes glazing over. Almost as if her mind went somewhere distant. She doesn’t look up from the weapon, even when Miu glances over and squints at her.

“Miu, I’ll look out for him. Kokichi Ouma,” Makoto promises, repeating the former supreme leader’s name. He traces the name very subtly on the back of his hand with his finger, which was a pretty odd trick. “I will… speak with you soon. Yeah.”

“Miu, I’ll find you after, okay?” The pop sensation says.

Makoto smiles in somebody's direction, wide and rather false-looking, but it's so brief and vague that it could have been directed at anybody.

And as soon as the Ultimate Hope entered the room, he’s gone, taking Sayaka with him. Byakuya busies himself with some sort of phone call and leaves as well. Fuyuhiko notices the diminishing crowd, sighs, and slinks away unnoticed. 

Miu grumbles as they exit, scuffing her shoes against the stage. Her laptop is still gone, K1-B0 is _gone_ , her progress is _gone, gone, gone._ _Everything._ She has to start _all over,_ without any of her previous programs, without K1-B0, without Chihiro’s Alter Ego programming, without the Cyprus Hotel’s files or any of the decoded files or _anything that could help her at all._ Miu has _nothing,_ now. Kokichi has just taken _everything._ And unless she can find Chihiro and get another program up and running at record speed, Miu is starting from scratch.

And her chances of finding help are exponentially lower, considering Chihiro hasn’t been found, yet. What if he’s… gone? Miu hasn’t thought about that at all, but now it’s starting to creep in, up her spine and through her throat, as a likely possibility. They still haven’t identified everybody in the lobby from the massacre two days ago. If Chihiro is gone, then Miu didn’t just lose all of her progress. Miu has quite possibly just lost the _last bit of Chihiro that anybody had left._

“I’m gonna find Kokichi,” Miu states. She looks over at the Ultimate Gymnast, who hasn’t responded to her. “Ey. Stretchy Bimbo. I’m talkin’ to you.”

“Let me come with,” Akane hums. Her gaze very slowly rises from her labelled gun and to Miu. A little too slowly.

“Fine. He’s probably with Pooichi,” Miu agrees. “Little shit thinks he can get away with stealing my stuff… Goddamn little…. Period clot…”

“Bah, I’m sure we’ll get the laptop back. ‘Sides, you could’ve lost it!” Akane replies, suddenly joyful again as she punches Miu lightly in the shoulder. “I lose stuff all the time! Lost my car keys two months ago, and I haven’t driven since!”

Miu chuckles lightly, trailing behind the taller woman as they exit the theatre, “It baffles me how you’ve lived this long.”

“Survived three seasons in a row, baby!” Akane grins, gesturing with a hearty thumbs up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 37/40
> 
> have a super happy new year!!! i hope everybody's 2021 turns out great!!! :DD


	32. hey! it's okay! you can keep going, right? :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a very, VERY quick lunch, and a chat with ultimate pop sensation, sayaka maizono

Miu’s feet kinda hurt.

The former inventor had been walking around this hotel for a damn _while,_ searching for _anybody_ in her class that might have a clue where Kokichi was. Staying true to his brand of disappearing when terribly needed, the former supreme leader was nowhere to be found, having vanished off of the face of the earth. Akane suggested that they go to the dining hall, as it was lunchtime and it was very reasonable for her class to be there. 

They follow the general crowd through the first floor, Akane bobbing her head along to Miu’s hatred-fueled ranting as they shuffle past various participants. A flock of lyrical dancers that just came from a noticeably draining practice glided down the hallways in small groups. Members of a set crew were beginning to transport wide pieces of wood to paint for Macbeth, which provided the rather comical image of Ryoma simply walking underneath the unbuilt set, unable to reach the wood himself and help carry it. Costume designers flailed thread everywhere, with stray pieces of string getting caught in one of Miu’s helix piercings. Akane had to duck quickly as an Ultimate Baseball Star rather half-hazardly tossed a bolt of fabric to an Ultimate Fanfic Creator, both of whom she scowled at for nearly taking her head out. Both men were more than willing to apologize as soon as they noticed her firearm.

Miu also passed by Himiko again, but instead of meandering around with her normal crowd, she was standing and talking with Korekiyo. _Korekiyo._ Of… all people. It was certainly _weird_ to see the tiny former mage and the towering former anthropologist chatting in the middle of the hallway, so distracted by whatever issue they were discussing that they didn’t notice Miu as she passed by, flashing them both a confused glare.

Himiko would be a great contender to interrogate concerning where Kokichi was, but Korekiyo freaked Miu out way too much to even think about approaching them. Whatever. The midget gets a pass this time.

Akane and Miu arrive to a busy dining room, participants grabbing at the food left out for them before they begin chattering over themselves, restless to talk about new updates or figure out anything that could possibly be happening. Miu scans over the crowd, feeling much taller than those sitting down as she gazed from above, gliding towards her class’s table with an air of confidence and (technically) a bodyguard behind her. A bodyguard that ensures that she doesn’t have to flip around and assess for danger herself.

Miu feels… safe. That’s gotta be it. She knows more than these people. The former inventor is better protected than a lot of these people.

She can’t let this get to her head. She can’t get this cocky. What a terrible, terrible thing to boast about.

“Afternoon, virgins!” Miu greets her class, her default vulgarity beating any sort of politeness to the punch.

Her class replies with startled mumbles or some sort of half-assed gesture of welcome. Kaede beams, turning around in her chair, greeting Miu with a wave from both hands. Her smile very subtly falters as Akane shuffles in behind the former inventor, her gaze flickering to the tactical gun belt for a brief moment, but her stare doesn’t waver long enough to be noticeable.

 _Hello! Who’s this?_ Kaede immediately insists, wiggling her eyebrows playfully. Akane tilts her head like a lost puppy, recognizing that she was being asked about but unaware what the former pianist was saying.

“Ah. Kaede, Akane. Akane, Kaede. And… the rest of my class, or whatever,” Miu introduces with little energy, focused on being bitter and finding her stolen items.

“Yo,” Akane says with a two-fingered salute and a toothy grin. Miu’s class wave back, obviously cautious around the lady with a handgun.

 _Is she from the enforcement team? She’s new,_ Kaede further probes. _She’s sorta sexy, in an Olympic Gold Medalist kinda way._

“Kaede, you’re such an old fart, y’know that?” Miu squints. Kaede blinks obliviously. “And yeah, she’s from the fuckin’ team. Not the point! Point is: Kokichi stole my goddamn laptop, and I need to _find_ him so I can _kick_ him in his _tiny balls.”_

“Yeah! And in the ass!” Akane adds supportively.

“...That was definitely implied, Akane, but _yeah!”_

“Wasn’t he with you?” Kirumi queries.

“Nah. And hasn’t been for a while,” Akane replies for the former inventor.

“Well, we haven’t seen him, either,” Shuichi answers hesitantly, shoulders hunching in on themselves. His words seem clipped as subtle leans away from the armed gymnast. “U-Um… He’d probably be rehearsing, so I’d check the Black Rose Ballroom.”

Miu exhales in disappointment, “Already did, Inspector Gadget! Anybody else?”

Their silence is very loud. Her class looks at each other, as if they were all expecting the other to speak up and be the bolder person. It wasn’t unusual for her season to be quiet, in fact most of the time they sat in a very tense, awkward noiselessness. Miu had thought they were getting a little closer during this convention, in fact this morning they had seemed amicable with each other as they ate breakfast. So perhaps it wasn’t her classmates who were causing this unusual silence this afternoon. Perhaps it was Miu who was making them tense. Perhaps it was Miu’s presence that was putting them on edge, making them on edge.

They were nervous, Miu notices. They were nervous of Akane. Nervous of the enforcement team. 

People get nervous around Miu a lot, but it’s usually awkward nerves or sweaty embarrassment from how vulgar her language can be. Not nervous as in… scared for their life. Worried about injury, or the former inventor possibly harming them. That “Plan B” rumour must have reached the entire class now, and they are all damn aware that stepping out of line--stepping out of line in front of an _enforcement_ officer-- could land them a spot right smack in the middle of that list. It was almost weird thinking that Miu could make people fear for their wellbeing by simply approaching a table. Her sultry appearance doesn’t often come off as innately threatening. Hell, Miu doubts that _Kokichi_ feared for his wellbeing that dreaded day in the simulator, which was perhaps the only time she outwardly expressed a desire to murder somebody outright and meant it. Or maybe he _was_ scared. Didn’t show it, but that was typical for the former supreme leader.

It’s weird. It’s definitely weird. 

And Miu certainly felt a little evil admitting that it made her feel almost powerful. 

Not in a, “I’m heartless and I’m glad that everybody here fears me” way-- not at all. It was more in a, “fuck you” kinda way, a retaliation towards her a class, a jab in their faces that proves she _is_ capable of handling herself and thriving. She can be a survivor and she _isn’t_ going to let herself fail like she did in the simulator.

“Nobody?” She hums, one eyebrow perked as her hands rest exasperatedly on her hips.

The class shakes their heads.

Tenko, clad in dance attire and hair in a high ponytail, drums her fingers against her knees, “I’ll ask Mimi when she comes back, she should know where--”

“Already passed her, Miss Andry. Don’tcha think I would’ve stopped to chat if I wanted to?” Miu says. At Akane’s confused glance, the former inventor further elaborates with an aside, “Himiko? Red hair? Yay high? We passed her on the way--”

Akane snaps her fingers once she understands, “Ohhhhhh, the one talking with the creepy tall dude.”

“Exactly. Now, if you scrubs don’t have anything useful to say--”

“I’m sorry, talking with _who?”_ Tenko interrupts.

“Oh, yeah, her and Korekiyo were talkin’ out in the hallway, or whatever. Somethin’ about investigating. Blah, blah, blah,” Miu disregards, waving her hands in the former aikido master’s direction rather rudely. Tenko’s face drops almost worriedly for a second as she shares a glance with the nearby Angie. “I’ve gotta keep lookin’ fer my laptop! You’ve all been _very_ helpful.”

“Yeah! Super helpful!” Akane parrots with a thumbs up.

“Sarcasm.”

“...Not helpful at all,” Akane corrects, expression dropping.

Miu exhales deeply as she walks away from the table, a great sigh of disappointment leaving her. She’s nowhere closer to finding that laptop. God, she fucking _needs_ it. It’s pissing her off how utterly useless she feels without it. She can feel her face burning up in annoyance as she continuously twirls a lock of her hair to distract herself.

Participants are glancing almost uneasily at Akane as the pair head straight towards the exit, avoiding people’s stares rather obliviously. The gymnast has gotten one of Sayaka’s songs stuck in her head and has begun humming it behind Miu, which, while serving as a rather consistent indicator that somebody is behind her, was flippant in this situation. They’re nearly to the door when Miu abruptly flips around.

“Food! What the fuck, I totally forgot,” She says out loud, bopping her head in frustration. Miu turns to Akane. “You should’ve reminded me!”

“Hm? Oh, haha, my bad! Haven’t had much of an appetite lately,” The gymnast admits sheepishly, scratching at the back of her head. 

Miu very intentionally looks past her class’s table to observe the buffet table from afar. Nothing too appealing. Mukuro Ikusaba stood off to the side, mask still over her face, tapping at her phone and occasionally glancing up at the other participants. Analyzing. She scared Miu a little bit.

Akane starts to pass by the former inventor, gripping onto the strawberry blonde’s shoulder in a gesture that was supposed to be supportive but came off a little too roughly.

“I’m sure Saya’s finished chatting with Makoto by now. I’ll grab us grub and meetcha back in the Iris Ballroom, yeah? Or wherever you find Kokichi, if you see him around,” She moves backwards, paying little attention to anything that might be behind her. The gymnast’s steps are confident-- reasonably so, considering how the other participants parted like the Red Sea as she backed into them. “Got my number?”

“Duh,” Miu replies. “Catch you ‘round.”

Akane answers back with a snap and a flurry of finger guns, but she realizes what gesture she just made, in public, nonetheless, and it ends very quickly. Miu nearly snorts at how the gymnast rapidly turns around and hugs her hands to her chest, but understands the implications much faster than she could laugh at it.

The former inventor catches Angie and Tenko leaving the dining hall, and takes their dismissal as her own cue to leave.

-=+=-

“Miu! There you are,” Sayaka says. Her voice sounds rushed as she turns into the backstage area. “I couldn’t find you.”

The former inventor groans audibly, head shoved into a massive cart of jumbled costumes. She kicks her left foot to let the pop sensation know she was listening, all the while rummaging through the clothes. Miu, as a last resort, was hoping that perhaps somebody thought this jumble of costumes was the lost and found, and dropped her laptop in the cart. It smelled like sweat in there. Sweat and angst. Smelled like fuckin’ Shuichi Saihara.

“It’s not _he-e-e-e-ere!!!”_ She angrily wails, letting her body hang over the edge of the cart as her head rests on a Victorian-esque costume. _“Look_ at me, Sayaka! I’ve got my head up a pile of skirts! Do you know how many asses have been in these skirts!?!”

“It just shows you’re dedicated,” Sayaka teases playfully, approaching very cautiously from behind. 

She assists the former inventor out of the cart, but makes sure to tap her hand against the brim a few times just to alert Miu she is now looming over her. The strawberry blonde grunts as she lands inelegantly back on her feet, both hands squishing her own face in tired exasperation.

“I am about to tear a new asshole into this building!” Miu threatens, gesturing violently at the walls. “Where the hell is it!? Where the hell is _Kokichi!?”_ Sayaka moves to say something, but the former inventor quickly interrupts her. “I know! I know. I gotta calm my tits.”

“I wouldn’t have used that phrasing…” The pop sensation replies.

Miu shrugs, “Bah. I’m sure there’s a real freaky side under all that pastel personality, lady.”

Sayaka sighs, tangling her two hands together nervously in front of her. She rocks back and forth between the balls of her feet and her heels, glancing around the area. Almost as if she was assessing who was near them. Miu notices her awry gaze and furrows her eyebrows, dragging her hands down her face in irritation for the last time before crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Lookin’ for someone?” She teases.

“No, I’m just making sure that nobody…” The pop sensation’s voice drifts off, her attention caught on something else. After a moment of contemplation, Sayaka gently grabs for Miu’s forearms, pulling her even further back into the backstage area. One that’s more shadowed. More hidden. “Alright, so I finished talking with Makoto about the ‘Plan B’ Gonta was talking about--”

“Oh-- Holy shit, what did he say?” Miu whispers. 

Sayaka’s face contorts, her lips scrunching inwards at the thought. Just the sight of the pop sensation noticeably worrying makes Miu’s heart accelerate.

“It was an… inconclusive conversation…” Sayaka begins, holding her hands up to her chest as she nervously plays with her fingers. “Mondo joined about halfway through, and then we had one of the head Danganronpa officials join a little later…”

“And? And?” Miu rushes, gesturing for the older girl to hurry this along.

“Miu, you can’t tell anybody,” The Ultimate Pop Sensation orders.

It’s very serious. Miu hated _“serious”._ It means her stupid jokes are even _more_ innappropriate to the situation. But her immature personality aside, the order causes Miu to tense up immensely, bringing her arms inwards towards her chest in a stiff recoil. Sayaka was a lot more silent, obviously trying to keep this matter as private as possible, which did nothing but worry the former inventor more. 

“Pssh, who the fuck am I gonna tell?” Miu tries to joke. Her inside voice was very naturally loud, and Sayaka can’t help but grimace slightly. “My class? As if--”

The pop sensation does not falter from her serious expression, “Miu, I’m serious. Nobody can know.” Miu doesn’t answer at first, her mouth hanging open but no words emerging. Sayaka suddenly squints, face hardening. _“...Nobody--”_

“Jeez! Jeez, I-I get it…!” Miu stammers.

“Sorry. Makoto just… _really_ wanted to let the enforcement team know that.”

Nobody else but the enforcement team could know. _Nobody._ Of course, she didn’t exactly have anybody outside of the enforcement team that Miu would run off and spill her guts to. Her class was dead to her, and will be receiving nothing. K1-B0 was missing in action, entirely gone. Rantaro was already doing poorly as it was, so any information that might possibly harm him would probably knock that man out. And Kaede is… not allowed to hear this. 

That one might actually hurt Miu a little bit. It’s not like she’s been entirely transparent with the former pianist this entire convention, in fact she can pretty vividly recall a few incidents where she bluffed on all of the details and sugarcoated a few things to fit Kaede’s optimistic image of what is happening. The enforcement team being somewhat of a militia was not information that Miu had shared with the blonde, instead it was learned by Kaede involuntarily. Miu hasn’t shared every conversation she’s had in this hotel, hasn’t shared every bit of knowledge that she has obtained. There were moments where Miu was more scared of her safety than she would like to admit to Kaede. There were moments she just didn’t want Kaede to know of. Miu had every opportunity to tell her friend about the Kokichi incident in the lighting booth, had every opportunity to pull her aside when she found her in the dining hall and explain what Kokichi had done and how he must have been the one to steal her laptop.

Miu had so many opportunities to be open with her friend. There are so many problems, issues and irregularities, that the former inventor has definitely been withholding.

Awh, shit. Kaede’s gonna be pissed as hell if she finds out Miu was withholding potentially vital information from her. That makes Miu a real dickhead. If Miu intentionally hides facts about this convention, that makes her no better than any asshole Danganronpa Official or Future Foundation member that hides information from the masses. This makes her no better than Makoto.

...But, on the other hand, she would rather know than not know. 

“Nothing is finalized,” Sayaka begins, her eyes wide. As if she was attempting to convince both herself as well as Miu. “Makoto and Mondo are going to have a lot more… long conversations… before this is enacted. And it’s not going to be easy-- For any of us. But…” Miu was nodding along almost dumbly, enraptured by what Sayaka was saying. The pop sensation notices her head bobbing and sighs softly. “...’Plan B’ is likely going to happen.”

Miu’s heart plummets to the floor. She can feel her body growing heavy, the air escaping through her lips until her chest feels weighted and her breathing feels thin.

“Oh… shit,” Is all she can say.

“Escape is not looking good,” Sayaka continues to explain, frequently checking over her shoulder as she almost _anxiously_ elaborates further. She’s terrified that people are listening, but appears much more horrified by what she’s saying. And maybe that was for a good reason. “Miu, there were-- There are a _lot_ of people trying. Not just you. It’s-- It’s much harder than it looks to find any sort of escape, the lock system is so much harder to break down than anybody really expected--”

“Oh my… god,” Miu’s words hitch in her throat. “That’s…”

“Bad. Makoto has been trying not to say anything about it because he doesn’t want anybody to get discouraged, but-- But escape just… seems very far away. At least through technology,” The pop sensation taps her hands nervously together, eyes still wide open and arms held tightly to her chest. “...And with your laptop gone…”

It didn’t sound as if the disappearance of Miu’s laptop really made much of a difference. In fact, it sounded as if Miu just wasn’t close to finding an escape at all. The sinking feeling that immediately arrives in her stomach gives the former inventor a very good reason as to why Makoto didn’t want to tell anybody this. She’s feeling fucking _discouraged,_ alright. 

“...The time limit is coming up very… rapidly. And a lot of people feel as if… there is no… other option,” Sayaka all but chokes, before her expression crumbles even further with a disheartened wheeze of air. Her forehead falls into her hands. “It’s horrible. This whole thing.”

Saying ‘Well duh, lady’ would not be an appropriate response. Snapping at the shaken woman for stating the absolute obvious would be a rude, inappropriate response. It’s back to the question of comfort again, and whether or not Miu can filter herself enough to provide some kind of support when she, herself, is struggling. Miu is shaken, herself, which was perhaps the worst place she could be in to provide Sayaka with solace. 

It’s times like these that the ‘What Would Kaede Do? (WWKD)’ question comes back into play. The former pianist would at least _try_ to be considerate. So even as Miu chokes down the nervous feeling in her gut, she still pats Sayaka incredibly awkwardly on the shoulder, leaning as far back as humanly possible in some warped form of consolation. The pop sensation smiles, almost sardonically, peeking out from behind her hands.

“D-Do they know who they’re choosing?” Miu asks, her voice unusually quiet.

Sayaka sighs again, eyes trailing up to the ceiling for a moment before returning to meet the former inventor’s gaze, “Nothing is certain, but it’s probably… AHL members, most likely. O-Or if they can’t decide who they are, then it might be other factors… Like, um, maybe-- Maybe who has a family, or not. Things like that.”

Miu isn’t sure why it was her first thought, but she quite impulsively announces, “U-Uhhhh, everybody in my class is like, seventeen. Max. It’s not like we’re makin’ families in our free time--”

“No! No, oh my gosh. You-- You’re not--” Sayaka waves her hands in front of her, again returning to a much more serious attitude. “You’re safe. Nobody is hurting your class-- Or any kids, on the matter. Makoto promised.”

Miu releases a heavy exhale. _“You’re safe”._ What kind words in such an utterly terrifying situation. 

“...Well, shit. What the fuck--? That’s-- ...Shit….” Is all Miu can babble. She motions with her hands as if she was saying something coherent, despite nothing coming out of her mouth being comprehensible. “...I mean-- ...Hold on, I’ll find words eventually--”

“It’s fine,” Sayaka sighs in one note.

The former inventor paces, shuffling in place, twirling her hands through her hair as if it was the only lifeline she had. She just needs to calm down and shut the hell up. This is a reality that wasn’t going to affect her safety, and for multiple reasons. 

“...When are they deciding?” The former inventor queries.

“W-Well… it would be tomorrow, wouldn’t it? Considering the time limit…”

Miu swallows. Right. That’s coming up _very_ quickly, isn’t it? _Much too quickly,_ “...Yeah.”

“Nothing is confirmed. That doesn’t mean you can tell anybody, but nothing is confirmed.”

“Yeah. Y-Yeah, I got... I got that.”

Hm. It's getting harder to breathe. That can't be good, right?

Sayaka nods, content in Miu’s affirmation, her lips thinned into a sober line, “This is going to get… a whole lot harder, Miu. Things are going to get much harder,” No matter how hard the pop sensation tried to put on a brave face, her voice still raises with repressed emotion. “But you’re on the enforcement team, so I wanted you to know. A-And be aware of… what _might_ be happening.”

Miu titters bitterly through her teeth before she realizes it. Sayaka instantly lowers her eyebrows in confusion, lips still sealed tightly together and hands clamped close to her heart.

“Sorry?” The pop sensation asks.

Miu withers instantly, _“Hee--_ I-It’s just a little fuckin’ weird that you’re goin’ to me!”

“What do you mean?” Sayaka buzzes, glancing quickly at the curtains to make sure nobody had entered.

“I don’t get why yer--” The former inventor mumbles her words, shrugging vaguely pulling awkward faces in an attempt to convey her feelings without verbalizing them. Her volume begins to increase until she’s eventually back to her regular speaking tone, albeit slightly frenzied. “I don’t get why you’re tellin’ me, lady!! I don’t really get… why you’re trusting me??”

Sayaka’s lips twitch downwards, “...Should I _not?”_

“No that’s not it-- I just thought after the whole…” Miu’s sentence intentionally drifts off, expecting the pop singer to finish it herself. Sayaka does not. The strawberry blonde deflates, perhaps in embarrassment. “With the--? The whole Kokichi… thing?”

The pop sensation sniffs, her inhale shaky as her gaze drifts away in thought. She soon returns her gaze to Miu’s blue eyes with an uncertain, “Hm?”

Miu throws her hands up, volume now loud and unhidden, “When he fucking told you that I tried to kill someone??? Y’know, that would _worry_ most people, but I guess it flew over your flat head, huh, lady??”

Sayaka’s expression curls in a way that was unexpected, almost as if she just didn’t really care about that fact. She looked more confused, than anything.

“Miu, I still trust you,” She says after a beat, as if she thought that was what Miu wanted to hear.

The concept boggled at Miu’s mind. If the former inventor was in her spot, right now, she would have flipped the fuck out. One hundred percent. Because that was the reasonable reaction, right? 

Or maybe that was only a reasonable reaction in a Danganronpa-less world, in a place where not everybody has participated in a life-or-death killing game, often more than once. Maybe revealing outright that you’ve killed somebody was considered normal, as mundane as washing your bedsheets. As much as everybody hates to think about it, trying to kill somebody was not the worst thing achieved in this hotel. People have plotted a murder and gone through with it, without being choked from behind and thwarted like Miu was. There are people from her class that have a body count in the double digits, perhaps even _triple_ digits if Maki ever opened up about her fabricated past. Compared to them, Miu was not that bad. The people who have actually murdered are the ones they should be suspicious of, not Miu. Miu is not the one they should go after.

Miu is not half as bad as some of these people here. But in a Danganronpa-less world, it’s a horrifying thing to have done. To have tried to end somebody’s life. Even better, you only _tried._ You didn’t even finish the job, dumbass bitch, because you were a dumbass who is also a bitch that likes to monologue for too long and get yourself killed. So, congratulations. Now you’re a bastard with no morals and your victim is alive to tell everybody about it.

But then you wake up, only to realize it was a simulation. And now you’re guilty. And now _Miu’s_ guilty. Or maybe not. Maybe she’s beginning to convince herself that she’s not.

But, fact of the matter is, “tried to kill someone” was not a trustworthy character trait to have.

“...Are you dumb?” Is all Miu replies with.

“No,” Sayaka says firmly. “I’m not dumb. I just don’t think any of that affects my view of you, that’s all.”

“...You-- You just--” A pause. “Not at all? Whatsoever? Everything is just peaches and cream in that empty fuckin’ skull of yours?” Sayaka lifts her hands slightly upwards in a very muted shrug, which Miu could only scoff at. _“Why?_ You’re trustin’ me _way_ too fuckin’ quickly here, and it’s startin’ to give me the heebie jeebies. I-I mean, I thought Kokichi made it _very_ clear, but you’re still… giving me all this info like it’s nothin’... Why--?” 

“Well.. I mean-- ...Cause I…” Sayaka grimaces at the start of her own sentence, head swaying back and forth as she tests the waters of what she’s about to say next. Her lips once again strain against her mouth, but this time they curl upwards, as if she was feigning a smile. The solemn tone of the conversation begins to fade as the pop sensation calculates how she is about to explain her next words. “...Did the same thing, y’know?”

Silence. A beat of quiet.

“Huh?” The former inventor mouths.

“The motive was… bad, to say the least,” She’s rushing, definitely. The words sit coldly on her lips, sharp and clipped, almost as if they were painful to get out. It’s the quietest the pop sensation has ever been, her sentences just barely above a whisper. “I thought my band-- my family, at the time, before all of this… fiction stuff got revealed-- were really hurt. _Really_ hurt. I-I was ready to do anything to see them again. So I-- I lured someone to my room, tried to stab them, and in return--” She inhales shakily, a memory hitching her words in her throat. Sayaka smiles, lips almost trembling, her wide eyes making the facade less than convincing. “...You know.”

All Miu could do was stare. Not rudely, or even harshly, but instead with a familiarity behind her expression. They had… something in common? This pop sensation, this do-gooder, bright and sunny, attractive girl with a perfect personality and an innocent complexion tried to kill somebody? _This_ girl? Miu almost couldn’t believe it. The same girl who scolded others on the enforcement team not to use cuss words around the teenager who was swearing like a goddamn sailor tried to murder somebody? 

Miu, the vulgar, overly-irrational, self-centered dumbass who got killed by fucking _toilet paper_ had something in common with the radiant, ever-talented _Sayaka Maizono?_

It’s almost like a punch to the gut. The strawberry blonde had been so occupied with thinking about her own flawed morality and decision making back in the simulator that she had barely thought about other people’s. And even if she _had,_ she was not expecting _Sayaka Maizono_ to be the bad guy _._ Miu knew she was the first victim-- ouch, by the way-- but not because she had taken a knife and tried to jam it through someone’s torso. It gave the pop sensation a whole new edge. It gave depth to this otherwise perky, usually charismatic gal. To think somebody as pleasant as her had sunken to the level of _Miu goddamn Iruma--_

The former inventor’s mouth opens. For a moment, Miu thinks that she’s responding, but it turns out she was just releasing air for a solid five seconds.

“Kokichi,” Is the first word she says as soon as her vocal cords begin working again. It’s powerless. “Is the cuck I tried to kill.”

“I thought so.”

“Gonta snuck up behind me. Choked to death with toilet paper.”

“I thought s-- _Toilet paper??”_

Miu wheezes. It’s facetious and loud. Her chortles are unnattractive at best, but are so infectious that the shaken Sayaka can’t help but giggle under her until they are both laughing, eyes glassy in fear and sorrow but smiles wide with flippant titters. 

“Fucking _ridiculous,_ right!?” The former inventor continues loudly. “I’ve gotta deal with a roll of that every time I take a piss!!!! You know how goddamn embarassing it is to be scared of the fuckin’ _shitter???”_

“No way, you’re scared too??” Sayaka snickers, grabbing at Miu’s hands girlishly. _“I_ **_died_ ** _in the bathroom!!”_

 _“No fucking wa--”_

The former inventor heaves over, one hand still in the pop sensation’s while the other wraps around her stomach. Sayaka slaps her free hand over her mouth, desperate to stop herself from laughing when the both of them are clearly also crying.

“This is horrible!” She gasps, fanning her eyes.

“So bad!” Miu agrees, practically sobbing.

“We shouldn’t be laughing-- Everything is going so terribly, and--”

“Oh, laugh it off, bitch, we’re already shitty people!”

Sayaka warbles out a chuckle, half-heartedly pulling the girl into a warm hug. Miu doesn’t have the energy to push her off. Both of them are tired. Tired, terrible people. 

But it’s warm here. It doesn’t feel forced, or even one-sided, like many of Miu’s hugs are. Sayaka sighs heavily until she’s sunken even further into the embrace, the giggles subsiding until they’re both brought back to their cold, harsh reality. Miu has to allow herself to feel safe in this moment, even if just briefly, because after this it’s over. After this, safety was a blessing that she had to fight even harder for. That could very much include choosing forty people. 

Maybe escape wasn’t in the near future. Maybe her technology and inventing skills was getting her nowhere. Perhaps the best thing Miu could strive for was her own safety, her own self-preservation. And that safety doesn’t come from her laptop. It comes from people like Sayaka, from the enforcement team. From Plan B. From weaponry and Makoto and _staying on this side_ of participants. This is the safe side. This is the _right_ side.

“We’ll be fine.”

It isn’t Sayaka who says it. It’s _Miu_ who does. Because Miu feels more confident in that than Sayaka does. 

She’s not going to repeat her killing game mistakes. She’ll be stronger this time. They both will.

Plan B was good, Miu reckons. If it did happen. She won’t tell Sayaka, who was still trembling with what was to come, but Miu feels confident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 36/40
> 
> miu: feeling cocky about having power in a situation where the powerless are left without information and scared for their lives is terrible and i should not feel that way.  
> also miu: ......... however,


	33. and as the earth runs to the ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everything is starting to crumble (in himiko's opinion)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have a nice day guys!!! :D

Himiko was silent on her way to lunch. 

The conversation was over, yet so many things remained open-ended. So many untied knots, so many things to worry about. It sat unpleasantly in her stomach and didn’t give her much of an appetite.

Still, Himiko moves forward. Korekiyo follows her side, just as quiet, face rather un-emotive and stony. Participants glide by them, all of them much more eager to get their lunch and eat than the teenagers were. A few dancers that had been left behind stagger forwards towards the dining hall. Ryoma had passed a bit ago, but the massive unpainted set pieces for Macbeth blocked him from seeing Himiko and Korekiyo together. Pieces of thread being used for the fashion show flailed around and got caught in the redhead’s hair as designers passed by with bolts of fabric. It’s still there. She was too distracted to pluck it out of her hair.

Himiko reckons she better stop before reaching the dining hall. For more than one reason, actually: If both her and Korekiyo walk in at the same time, Angie and Tenko might notice and that just might make an already awful day even worse; Plus, if she stays there for long enough, she might just be able to will the energy back into her body. That’s definitely how it works, right? If she stops moving for a bit, then the energy will definitely return to her. Recharging her mana through inactivity. Yeah, that’s definitely how it works.

“Whad’you think lunch is?” She drawls casually, infliction kind yet still in that iconic monotone of hers. “I’m hoping for something light. I’m not that hungry.”

“I’m sure there will be something you can pick at,” Korekiyo assures. “They always have small bowls of rice, if that helps.”

“...Ever heard of rice writing?” Himiko throws out. Korekiyo’s eyebrows lower briefly, confused about the direction of this conversation. “....Where you… write on rice...?”

The former anthropologist blinks, thrown off by the question, but acknowledges how she’s trying to move on from Junko and the thought of screwing up terribly, “Yes. In fact, rice was used as a medium for multiple rituals and rites in ancient Anatolia. It more or less turned into an art form over the years.”

“Wow. Does your brain hurt from all the information that’s in there?”

He titters from behind his teeth, “I don’t believe that’s how it works.”

“You seem like the type of person who would correct the teacher in class,” Himiko says. 

“Thank you for the soul read,” Korekiyo replies. “But it is rather off-putting knowing all of these anthropology facts when I’m no longer pursuing anthropology as a career. It’s almost as if you’ve spent your entire life training for a race, only to find out you no longer want to run. I’m assuming it’s the same with your magic.”

“Yeah…” Himiko sighs. She’s still dreary from the previous events, and it seeps through her sunken posture. There’s a lot more she wants to say on the subject, but if she says any more she’ll probably just end up falling further into this emotional rut she’s digging herself. “...Don’t have much anymore.”

“I’m sure you have m--”

Very, very abruptly, Korekiyo stops mid-sentence, pivots sharply, and begins  _ speed-walking _ in the other direction. There is a look of panic on his face as he hurriedly attempts to escape whatever was approaching from Himiko’s direction. The redhead stammers in confusion, a few clipped vowels escaping her mouth as she freezes on the spot, watching with curiosity as he makes it a few feet away. 

He doesn’t get farther than that.

_ “Hey!”  _ Tenko calls, approaching from the direction of the dining hall. A hesitant Angie approaches behind her, smile tense across her face but hands folded politely behind her. “Hey, what are you--?”

The former aikido master stops as she notices Himiko standing dumbly in the middle of the hallway, frozen and at a complete loss of words. Tenko’s expression drops from hardened irritation to immediate worry and concern as she rushes desperately to reach her girlfriend, grabbing her shoulders with her hands.

“O-Oh, are you okay?? Are you okay, Himiko?” She rapidly interrogates, scanning the redhead up and down for any sign of injury. 

Himiko flusters, body instantly turning cold, “Nyeh? I-I’m fine, I’m fine!” Ever after her firm affirmations of wellness, Tenko still double checks one last time, her eyes beginning to grow glassy in worry. With total confirmation that the redhead was okay, the former aikido master sighs in relief and scoops the smaller girl up in her arms. Himiko couldn’t help but giggle, despite her complete fear of the situation she was in. “I’m fine, babe!”

“Ah, Korekiyo!” Angie chirps, pale blue eyes latching on to the stiff former anthropologist, who was standing awkwardly in the hallway. He had heard Tenko call for him and immediately halted in place. “The dining hall is that way, yes?”

Oh, god. Oooooooooohhhhhhhhh, dear  _ lord. _ Seriously? Himiko’s day has already gone to complete  _ shit, _ and the universe is just gonna drop this absolute dump of situation on her? Why are things just getting worse? Why are things getting WORSE for her? She’s already learned her lesson, she’s already learned that she can’t be impulsive and stupid when Junko gave her that lecture just mere  _ moments _ ago. And now both Angie  _ and _ Tenko show up, probably noticing that she was just talking with the one person they dislike most? Is the world ever going to give the redhead a  _ break!? _

It’s mistake after mistake that keeps folding on top of her. She’s watching as this glass tower she’s not-so carefully assembled crashes piece by piece, toppling down in front of her and sending shards into her eyes. Eventually this entire mess of a convention is just gonna completely collapse on her. It’s been three days.  _ Three days. _ And Angie’s gonna be so mad and  _ Tenko’s _ gonna be so mad and everybody is just going to be  _ mad _ at her  _ including  _ herself,  _ especially _ herself--

She’s still in Tenko’s arms, feet not touching the floor. The former aikido master holds her very tightly above the ground. It makes her feel weightless, weightless and flighty. Like she was light-headed. Her skin runs cold with anticipated dread. Her bruised back shouts in pain but she’s too guilty to tell Tenko was hugging her just a bit too tightly.

Korekiyo tenses, obviously experiencing the exact same feeling of, “again? I have to go through  _ more?” _ as he raps his fingers against his side. He’s keeping visible distance between himself and the three girls. Angie enforces this distance with nervous resilience.

“Ah, silly me,” He replies hurriedly. Sweat is starting to roll down his forehead. It sounds as if his teeth were gritted. “I must have forgotten where it was.”

“Nooo, I’m sure you were just running away from us,” Angie accuses with a disheartened smile.

Korekiyo freezes entirely, blinking. He clears his throat before continuing, “... You’re right, I completely forgot. That  _ was _ what I was doing. Excuse me.” 

He tries turning around again, but Angie stops him with a hesitant step forward. The step is so tiny that it barely looked as if she moved towards him at all.

“No, actually, while you’re here-- I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” She says slowly.

It’s starting to seem as if Korekiyo was the real one in trouble here and not Himiko. His gaze shifts to everywhere Angie and Tenko weren’t, as if he was being distracted by somebody that just wasn’t there. Tenko’s gaze was planted directly on him, eyes squinted and harsh, like even the possibility of him talking to Himiko made her enraged. 

“I think we  _ all _ need to talk, hm?” Angie further suggests.

“Ew, no!” Tenko instantly recoils.

Both Angie and Himiko flash the brunette a quick look, which softens the former aikido master’s expression for a brief moment. The redhead’s feet are still not touching the ground. She’s almost tempted to bury her face completely, praying that the conversation does not swerve to why she was talking with Korekiyo in the first place. From where it stands, Angie and Tenko just don’t seem to have enough evidence to make any angry accusations.

Which was good, because Himiko would not be able to handle anybody else yelling at her when she’s already folding over herself in guilt and self-hatred.

“Well, you see…” Korekiyo starts. His nervous voice drifts, again sounding incredibly distracted. The ends of his sentences fade like he was listening to something Himiko couldn’t hear. “....Well…--”

“Don’t tell Angie you’re busy, heathen!! _Nobody_ is busy in this hotel!!!” Tenko argues, setting Himiko gently down on the floor. Even though she’s obviously against even _looking_ at Korekiyo, she’s more concerned about Angie than being angry. Still, she can’t help but be accusatory. “Unless you’re _scheming_ something, huh?? _Huh???”_

“No, I’m  _ not. _ I can assure you I’m  _ not. _ I--” He pauses, eyes very briefly shifting towards Himiko. If he was asking for help, he should have known that Himiko couldn’t pick those things up through his mask and a subtle blink in her direction. His voice grows exponentially quieter as he mumbles, “...I’m not.”

Tenko glares so harshly that it could shrivel a man. She’s stepped in front of Himiko, now, shielding the smaller girl from invisible harm. 

“Kaede and Rantaro have already talked about it, and so have Kirumi and Ryoma,” Angie continues. Tenko was shaking her head over the former artist’s tense proposal. “I just feel we should get everything out on the table, yes? The time limit is tomorrow.”

Oh, don’t remind Himiko. She doesn’t like thinking about that. Sure, it provides Angie with a very solid reason as to why she’s asking Korekiyo for a conversation that would likely provide closure, but the thought of another massacre approaching, whether it be caused by the hotel or from the participants, sent shivers down Himiko’s spine. 

“Well, if you want  _ all _ of us to talk, then it’s not gonna be right now. I don’t wanna do it right now,” Tenko coldly disagrees. She glances between the tall teenager and her girlfriend, her sharp expression slowly morphing the longer she thinks about the situation at hand. It’s denial, maybe. Denial that Himiko was ever talking to Korekiyo in the first place. “I’m not ready.”

“I’m not saying right now. I’m not ready, either,” Angie says. Himiko could almost see Korekiyo’s shoulders deflating in relief. He’s  _ definitely _ not ready to talk about the killing game. “But it has to happen sometime before tomorrow. I won’t--” Something familiar flashes by her, and her smile grows almost sarcastically. “I won’t  _ push _ anything, but it’s gotta.” 

Himiko has not said anything at all, and quite honestly it’s working out. She’s been tense ever since this conversation started, begging for it to be over soon. Korekiyo most certainly felt the same way.

He inhales deeply before rushing his next words, “I understand completely and I really do not want to impose on either of--

Interrupting him, perhaps thankfully, the once-quiet hallway is flooded with the sound of running footsteps. Himiko’s class comes sprinting around the corner, all of them at their own varying speeds. Noticing the tense confrontation in the hallway, many stop in front of them.

“Where’s Kokichi?” Kaito asks. He’s the first one out the door despite his sprained ankle. “Himiko, where’s Kokichi?”

“Tell us. Where is he, Himiko?” Maki interrogates much more coldly, speaking over her boyfriend. 

Thank god. A distraction. Himiko would kiss the universe right now if she could. 

“Wh-What? What do you mean?” The redhead asks cautiously.

Shuichi turns the corner, looking noticeably tense and worried. Of course, it wasn’t much of a change, “Oh, Himi, there you are. Have you seen Kokichi? He might be in trouble and we need to find him.”

“He’s not answering anything,” Ryoma inputs, also approaching from behind the corner. 

_ We’re going to find him. We’ll do a sweep of the building! _ Kaede inputs, determination flashing across her face.

“I should leave…” Korekiyo inputs once more, noticing an opportunity to exit the conversation and quickly grasping at it. Kaede waves her hands at him, halting him in place once more. The former anthropologist just doesn’t seem to have the heart to tell anybody no.

_ Nope! We’re all going together!  _ The blonde insists, making sure everybody can see her. Angie returns to her friend’s side and Kirumi, the last person to walk around the corner considering she’s on a crutch, closes this wobbly circle of people. Korekiyo observes awkwardly from outside of it, unaware if he should join or keep distance.  _ All of us are looking for Kokichi as a  _ **_class!_ ** __

“But Rantaro is not here?” Angie points out.

_ Rantaro is busy. _

“Miu?” Tenko adds.

_...Miu will be fine, _ Kaede replies after a moment’s hesitation.

“We don’t want Miu with us right now,” Shuichi elaborates, after the former pianist seems hesitant to do so. “She has somebody with her that’s got a gun. They were asking for Kokichi, which is why we’re looking for him.”

“He could be in danger,” Kaito concludes.

Maki huffs through her nose, “That idiot.”

_ No time for that, _ Kaede says, which the former assassin promptly side-eyes her for.  _ Let’s go! _

-=+=-

They’re on the third floor when they find Kokichi.

Himiko had reached the floor with a sense of nervousness, a resounding fear spiking through her as soon as the elevator doors opened. The class, all of them having been piled into one elevator, push themselves out of the elevator with a mission to find the former supreme leader before Miu does. Gonta stays behind with Kirumi, walking alongside her as she moves slowly behind. 

Of course, it had to be the same floor that Junko’s hotel room was in, because nothing ever goes right for Himiko.

She wants to flash Korekiyo a panicked look, but she’s surrounded by her entire class, now, and can’t afford to screw up any further. But what if Junko was on this floor? Would she act normal? Would she still pretend to be Sakine? Or would she think this abrupt entourage of people was an angry horde that Himiko and Korekiyo organized, thus blaring the alarms and having the entire class killed? It was all Himiko could think about as they walked down the hallways, every member of the class bustling with nervous energy as they searched for Kokichi. If Junko really was behind all of this, then she had more than enough reason to simply pull the trigger on all of them.

And if that happened, Himiko would die guilty.

Kokichi arrives perhaps five minutes into the search of the third floor. He walks in from the opposite direction, face blank and unexpressive, a large backpack around his shoulders. He notices the large group and for a moment looks taken aback, but doesn’t allow the shock to overwhelm him for long.

He runs in from the same direction that Junko’s hotel room was in.

“What did you do?” Shuichi is the first one to walk up to him, anxious to get answers as he checks to make sure the purple teen was alright. “You’ve got Miu pissed, and a lady with a gun is looking for you—“

“Awww, did you guys all come to find me?” Kokichi interrupts with a gleeful smile, bashfully twirling his hips. “No way! That’s so thoughtful of you all!”

Himiko can’t stop thinking about the direction he came from. It was too much of a coincidence,  _ too  _ much. That, or she’s panicking about every little detail, over-analyzing the environment for danger or any sign of threat. She dislikes how paranoid she’s beginning to grow, all thanks to the sheer amount of friends she has in the exact same area. If something happens, all of them are under fire. All of them. And if Kokichi just entered from the direction of Junko’s room, that means he could have just been talking with her, because they  _ have _ chatted with each other before. And if that’s the case, that could mean Junko is just around the corner, waiting for the best possible moment to strike--

“--This is serious,” Shuichi continues. People are talking, throwing words at Kokichi, but Himiko can barely hear them. It’s all background noise. “You might have just thrown us all into serious danger.”

“What did you  _ do? _ Miu said you took something, do you have it?” Maki accuses, coldly rushing towards him. Upon noticing the backpack he was wearing, she hastily rips it off and unzips it to check for any stolen items. It’s completely empty.

Kokichi sighs, still grinning, “Leave it to that skank to threaten people over a few name-calls….”

“Could you not have been more collected around Miu…?” Kirumi argues as soon as she’s rejoined the group again, expression firm.

Crocodile tears threaten to spill over the former supreme leader’s cheeks, “A-Are you saying this is  _ my _ fault?”

“More or less,” Maki mutters under her breath.

No, this was definitely Himiko’s fault. It’s what she was telling herself, anyways. Even if her brain has to grasp at straws a little bit, this was certainly Himiko’s fault. She just wasn’t smart enough to realize all of this happening underneath her nose, and now it was all failing and everything was catching up to her. If she had figured out who Junko was sooner, then Kokichi wouldn’t be in this situation. This hurts. Oh, this hurts. Running away would be too obvious, but it’s all Himiko wants to do.

“Oh,  _ sure.  _ Blame the guy who’s a huge idiot and causes all the problems.  _ Again,” _ Kokichi snaps, tears evaporated and expression jokingly serious. His hands rested on his hips, which was quite facetious in a situation as this. “My therapist will be hearing about this!”

Himiko’s eyes were locked on the corner Kokichi had arrived from, almost as if she was expecting Junko to walk out and start cackling at her again. “Sakine” was turning out to hold a lot more significance over her than it first seemed. When the redhead had met her that first day in a women’s restroom, she wasn’t expecting anything to come out of it other than maybe a nice friendship. Jesus Christ.  _ Look _ where that naivety has gotten her. Junko could very possibly be threatening Kokichi the same way she had just threatened Himiko and Korekiyo. She seemed to threaten people quite naturally, actually. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising if she was the one who went up to Tenko that first day and demanded that she run and find the Masterkey in the basement, despite a  _ gun _ going off. In fact, that--

...That suddenly seems very, very likely. It’s harrowing. It just feels like everything was… circling right back to the Ultimate Despair. The same Ultimate Despair that Himiko had just… 

“Um, Himiko? Are you okay?” It’s Tenko’s voice. The redhead must have been squinting forward, her expression noticeably cold. “...You look angry--”

“Junko Enoshima,” Himiko answers, still staring forward.

“H-Huh?”

The class silences, all of them turning to the redhead at once. The former magician blinks before turning towards Tenko again.

“Junko Enoshima, right?” She further pushes. Everybody around her was staring with confusion. Tenko’s expression could only be described as startled bewilderment. “The one who made you look for the Masterkey that first day? Or did she go by  _ Sakine--” _

Korekiyo must have made the same realization, however he, as well as the redhead, was skeptical of Junko being around the corner and hearing them, “Ah, Himiko, maybe you sh--” 

“Zip it, degenerate!!! Me and Himiko are having a side-conversation!!!” Tenko scorns, wincing subtly at her choice of words before turning back to the redhead in a gentler manner. At her insistence of privacy, the rest of the class resume interrogating Kokichi. “Where did you hear this?”

“I didn’t hear anything, I just… made a guess!” Himiko replies.

Tenko’s gaze darts around, checking who was around her, “I-I-I don’t really-- I don’t know if I can answer that--”

_ What do you mean?  _ Kaede asks, one of the only people who was listening to Himiko and Tenko’s conversation.  _ What’s going on?? _

“What’s going on? I’ll tell you,” Kokichi says chirpily. “This class is falling apart, and it’s all thanks to Miu Iruma!”

_ No, it’s not! _ The former pianist defends.

“Well, take a look at what’s happening, everybody! You’ve all come here because  _ Miu _ scared you into it.”

_ Why are you so determined to hurt her!?  _ Kaede huffs.  _ Are you trying to get us to hate her, or something!? _

“I can’t  _ believe  _ I just let her do that--!” At Himiko’s muttered grievances, Kokichi turns, hopeful for a moment that perhaps the former magician was also talking about Miu. Instead, the redhead was knocking her fists against her head, gaze downwards like she was speaking only to herself. She was definitely still on the Ultimate Despair. “All this time, I’ve just been letting her boss me and everybody I care about around--!”

Tenko stammers worriedly, “What are you talking about? Do you  _ know _ her--?”

“Do  _ you?” _ Ryoma questions. “You know, some people in this class are being left in the dark, here.”

“Exactly. I don’t believe anybody here has told me anything,” Kirumi agrees pointedly. 

“Silence, side characters!” Kokichi booms. “You know enough! Enforcement team  _ bad. _ Miu has  _ gun.” _

“Is that the ‘investigation’ Miu was talking about?” Tenko says, ignoring whatever Kokichi was saying to address Himiko. People continue to talk around them and she has to speak louder to be heard. “You-- You were trying to figure out who was--?”

“What did Miu say?” The redhead squints.

Angie pokes her head from behind Tenko’s back, turning away from Kokichi’s conversation to quickly add, “Miu said you were talking with Korekiyo.”

Himiko freezes, before her face falls in irritation,  _ “Miu?” _

“Of course it was her! Of  _ course!” _ Kokichi practically laughs, throwing his hands up. 

The hallways are filled once more with loud chatter, with the class talking over themselves to understand what was happening and grasp the situation at hand. Himiko has her hands over her ears, but could still hear Maki further demanding what Kokichi had done to make Miu so angry that the former inventor was walking around with an armed bodyguard. Shuichi was joining in, but was also being interrogated by Kirumi and Ryoma, who were accusing him of knowing much more than he was letting on to the rest of them. Tenko, whose voice was naturally loud, was shouting with a confused Kaito, whose voice was louder. Angie fans the flames of whatever conversation she joins, and Gonta’s seemingly innocent questions only draw more unappealing answers. Korekiyo stands aloofly off to the side.

_ Guys, please! We all just have to-- _ Kaede tries to stop everybody, but nobody is paying attention. She can’t yell over them.  _ Guys! _

Himiko doesn’t like all of this noise, and she reckons Korekiyo doesn’t like it either. His eyes were shifting all over the place, hands jerking occasionally as if he was debating moving them upwards and cupping them over his ears like Himiko was. The redhead catches his gaze for a moment and gestures at the exit for him to leave. Korekiyo gestures with his own head at the direction Kokichi came from, the direction of Junko’s hotel room, before slamming his hands over his ears and shuffling back towards the elevator.

Good. At least he’s escaped.

“You can’t go pissing Miu off anymore,” Shuichi warns, very, very nervously. “You  _ know _ about that Plan B rumor, and the enforcement team very well might be deciding. And if Miu’s on the enforcement team, then-- Then you’re the first person she’s--”

_ Miu wouldn’t do that. Please, just believe me, _ Kaede says.  _ She told me she wouldn’t. _

“Let’s not be stupid. Denial isn’t a pretty look on you,” Kokichi smirks. He knows he’s right. Kaede’s signing once again is drowned out by the sea of noise.

They’re being very loud. It might attract people who are holing up in their rooms. It’s just giving people more reason to be annoyed at Season 53. That must have been what Korekiyo was gesturing at; He wanted Himiko to know just how the class’s noise could very much piss off Junko if she  _ was _ around that corner. 

The redhead looks up at her class. They’re all yelling at this point. Kaede is trying desperately to find order but she just can’t. Himiko can’t remember them ever being this struck with paranoia _. _ All of them are terrified of what Miu was capable of. This vulgar, loud-mouthed inventor who used to be loosely attached to the class was now part of a team that could very well be creating a hit list. Multiple members of the class have just admitted to knowing the Ultimate Despair, and Himiko has made her  _ angry. _

Maybe Kokichi was right. Maybe this class really was falling apart. 

Kaede knew that. She could see it happening. Himiko turns towards her, and she’s just stood there. The former pianist isn’t attempting to stop them anymore, because she knows it’s useless. She stares at her class, obviously wanting to say something that will help, but only ends up tearing up when she tries. Kaede leaves without another word.

“K-Kaede? Kaede, wait!” Shuichi calls. It doesn’t stop the blonde as she escapes down the hallway, forcing the former detective to run after her.

The noise fizzles to a stop. The class stares dumbly down the hallway the pair had exited, standing rigidly in the middle of the third floor.

“Great, now we’ve made Kaede upset,” Kaito sighs.

“GO TEAM!!!” Kokichi whoops. 

“Shut up, will you?” Maki hisses. “You’ve said enough.”

Kokichi pouts, but doesn’t speak further.

“This bad. This  _ is _ bad,” Gonta voices.

The class sits in silence. Even if they can’t all agree on everything, they can still agree that this wasn’t an ideal situation at all. 

Maki looks over at Kaito who was once again voiceless when it came to motivation speeches or any words of affirmation. This was the time, a  _ great time, _ in fact, where the entire class was silent and waiting for somebody to fill in the gap. This was the moment for somebody to speak up, for somebody like Kaede with her positive spiels or Shuichi with his nervous yet determined speeches of leadership. But now even Kaito has grown past motivational speeches. 

Maki sighs, heavily, before turning back to the group, “Alright. We need to get over ourselves.”

“I beg your pardon?” Kirumi asks.

“You heard me. We all hate each other,” People start to object, but she sharply cuts them off. “For  _ good reason. _ We all went through shitty things and we all did shitty things to each other. But we can hate each other  _ after _ this is over, got it? But right now, this is all we have. We are  _ all _ we have. Everybody else is a stranger.”

Obviously if anybody had any objections, they were way too intimidated by Maki to bring it up. They absorbed the… pep talk (?) in silence, nobody looking at each other. Even Kokichi was being quiet. It was more of a command than it was a suggestion.  _ Get over yourself.  _

They’ve all accepted Maki’s blunt speech as a reason to part ways. The conversation turns neutral once more, with all of them speaking in their normal tones instead of the loud, grating volume they were using just a few moments ago. They pile onto the elevator once more, all of them less rigid and awkward as they stand next to each other.

_ Get over yourself. _ The phrase bounced around Himiko’s head. Maybe she did need to get over herself. Everything about the situation just seemed so… confusing, all of her emotions vague and her body treating all of her feelings indecisively. It just seems… It just feels…

She just can’t understand. Hopeless, maybe. She’s stepped back from the adrenaline that was pushing her body forward to realize that this situation was utterly hopeless. 

… She needs a nap. Yeah, that’s it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 35/40


	34. i'm losing the will i had to move! (i've no longer got a thing to prove)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> danganronpa theatre event: himiko sleeps a lot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's ya girl weewoo 😎 back at it again with yet another weird platonic pairing 😎
> 
> not really a tw but himiko is just. very sad
> 
> enjoy!!! <333

**-=+ DANGANRONPA THEATRE EVENT+=-**

**_The Misadventures of a Magic-Less Magician!_ **

**Starring: Himiko Yumeno, Rantaro Amami**

* * *

_She can’t move._

_Alright, correction: Himiko is physically capable of moving. She can wiggle her fingers and bend her arms. Her knees creak whenever she curls her legs inwards on her herself and her toes coil when she’s cold. Her nose twitches every once and a while to remind her that she can move her expression from it’s bland, neutral position. She can blink, even if it hurts to open her eyes sometimes._

_Himiko can move, sure. She just… hasn’t been doing it lately._

_It seems almost impossible, nowadays. The mere concept of standing up sounded so… unappealing, the thought of leaving this cocoon of blankets she’s made herself just entirely repulsive. Everything about her is tired. Her body and her mind are exhausted despite having achieved nothing in weeks. Her motivation has seemingly expired, the energy she had cultivated from the finale of Danganronpa simply evaporated from existence. What it left in its place was a sad image of a bland, fatigued child, somebody so unenergized that the only thing she could do was lay in bed and stare at the ceiling. Numbly. It seems her emotions are tired, too._

_She hadn’t been like this the entire time. Himiko, as well as a few other members of her class, can remember a happier time when she was more determined to make it out of this hotel. She interacted with her recently-deceased-but-not-really classmates, she cooperated when necessary but made snide comments towards Danganronpa officials when she could, she even made her bed in the morning. She was a model example of somebody who was recovering, the poster child of revival after severe trauma. Himiko was a model example, once._

_She’s not sure what happened after that. It’s transpired before, this fatigue-- in fact it used to happen pretty frequently. But this characteristically accurate dreariness has never been so extreme. It’s like gravity has increased tenfold and now stubbornly weighs her to her bed. This sinking feeling was gradual at first; it was a few yawns to start off with, then it eventually grew to missing group games of Uno, and then it reached the stage where she was asking for meals to be brought to her so she didn’t have to leave the room looking like a tired old hag. A laundry list of activities missed and multiple repeated questions varying from, “Are you okay?” from Tenko later, Himiko finds herself lying pathetically on her thin mattress. It’s been days now. In fact, tomorrow marks the 2-week anniversary of this slump she’s fallen into._

_Her Master (who she now realizes was not an all-powerful being but instead was some chump actor who willingly assisted in manipulating a teenage girl) used to tell her that being alone with your thoughts was the best thing she could do. He liked to spew oddly misleading lessons stating that magic came from within, that everything had to be internalized. Her girlfriend always believed in projecting your emotions no matter the intensity, allowing yourself to be sad and vulnerable and angry and joyful. Himiko, of course, listens to her girlfriend much more than she does this random old actor that Danganronpa probably bought off of Craigslist to do their bidding, but some habits die hard for the redhead._

_She’s tired. She’s unmotivated. She just can’t seem to find a reason to do... anything._

_Himiko used to stare at the ceiling a lot when she was a magician. She found the roof a great blank slate to draw her thoughts upon, an empty canvas to imagine her next magic tricks in vivid detail and map out her rather elaborate acts. But now the ceiling was empty. Her magic tricks had been deconstructed into petty parlor tricks, pathetic party favors for little kids to giggle at. Nothing but lies. It was scary to look up and overanalyze the talent she had “worked so hard for” when she knew the truth. The ugly truth. There was nothing, anymore. And most of the time, she was staring directly into an overhead light. It’s why she keeps the lights off._

_Sometimes, if she squints, she’s able to look at her own reflection through the glass of the lights above her. She looks terrible. The bags under her eyes are worse than ever. She can’t find the energy to cry at it, anymore._

_Tenko, bless her heart, was trying her best. She would lie on Himiko’s bed with her so she felt less lonely and would often refuse to cooperate with the rule that they had to sleep in their own separate beds. She talked with the redhead and suggested that Himiko attend more therapy sessions before this slump grows worse, even if that meant the therapist coming into the room and kicking Tenko out for two hours. The former aikido master was careful not to push, as she knows she can be a bit overzealous at times, and often sits with Himiko or brings a game of Uno to her bed so they could play with Angie. She was doing everything right, but the redhead just wasn’t getting better. It worried both of them._

_It was supposed to be getting better, right? The killing game was over, so why couldn’t she get out of bed?_

_Time has escaped her at this point. Tenko has been told by Himiko and nurses alike that she can’t eat lunch in their room, so no matter how fiercely the former aikido master fought against it she was forced to leave the redhead to sulk as she ate her meal. All was quiet. Maybe that wasn’t a good thing._

_All Himiko could do was succumb to her body’s wishes and sleep, praying that she'd somehow gain energy and grow enough confidence to escape the clutches of her room. Her psychiatrist had prescribed another set of pills to take along with anxiety meds, so hopefully those arrive soon and also miraculously make her feel better in the span of one day._

_A knock at the door arrives at a time Himiko could only assume was mid-noon. Rantaro Amami enters cautiously. One hand rests on the doorknob while the other leans against a hospital walker._

_It’s a little odd. It wasn’t as if Himiko disliked Rantaro, in fact he’s been very kind to her, but usually when the others check up on her it’s from the list of survivors: Shuichi, Kokichi, Kaito, Maki, and_ definitely _Tenko. Angie appears often, too, and sometimes Kaede if she’s feeling charitable that day. But never Rantaro._

_“Hey, Himi,” The boy greets lightly. “What’s going on?”_

_Well… pretty obviously nothing. It’s pretty clearly formality on Rantaro’s end-- he’s trying to start a conversation-- but it was a little silly considering the redhead was lying face-down on her pillow, knees curled up to her chin. Himiko turns over, squinting her eyes at the blinding light he was bringing into the room._

_“Not much,” She answers. Her voice sounds hoarse._

_Rantaro nods promptly, “Cool, cool. The show’s about to start. They’ve been asking for you.”_

_They watch their season of Danganronpa every Tuesday and Thursday. Himiko is required to go to at least one showing every week, and she chose Tuesday last week. It’s Thursday, now, the week after that. Both Tenko and Himiko skipped Tuesday’s premiere, which, according to Maki’s testimony, was the closure of the Third Trial. Because they skipped Tuesday, it was mandatory they show up today. Unless Himiko wanted a stern talking to from the nurses and a few privileges taken away. Privileges that she wasn’t really using, anyways._

_The redhead’s nose twitches, “...Why? I’m tired.”_

_“Yeah, sorry,” Rantaro apologizes, sheepishly rustling his hair. “You know how they are. They want everybody in the same place at the same time. But, hey, I’m sure Tenko will let you sleep on her lap.”_

_“...Yeah,” Himiko replies. She pushes herself groggily out of the bed, her back cracking like an old man. There’s no reason for her to sit up.“I’m sure.”_

_Rantaro watches as she slowly,_ very _slowly, swings her legs over the side of her bed. She didn't stand up to join the green teenager, instead she was sitting, hunched over, staring at the floor. Willing herself to move. Her legs definitely won’t enjoy this sudden exercise._

_Rantaro hesitantly moves forward, closing the door behind him._

_“Hey, everything okay?” He asks carefully. He hasn’t seen her in two weeks, now. Not a lot of people have. “What’s wrong?”_

_“It’s nothing. I’m just tired,” Himiko answers, which was mostly true._

_Rantaro smiles sympathetically, “Alright. But just know I’m all ears if something is bugging you, okay? I know I’m not Tenko, or anything… But I’m still here if you need me.”_

_The expression was nice, even if he knows that he’s not her first option for emotional guidance. Both of them understand that there were people she was closer to that would be the instant choice if she ever feels like talking. If._ If. _She doesn’t know what she’s feeling and there’s no way she can express it coherently._

_“Thanks, Rantaro,” Himiko hums politely._

_“Of course. Are you coming?” He offers amicably, still leaning on his crutch. Maybe he’s been feeling more lightheaded than usual, today. Even his wink is a bit weaker. “Trial Three is over, so you’ll be getting a lot more screen time.”_

_Trial Three was, in fact, over. Angie had come back to their room, eyes filled to the brim with tears that weren’t falling, and collapsed on Himiko’s bed, completely wordless. The girlfriends had let her sleep in their room that night._

_Now that Trial Three was over and the killing game had been thouroughly wrecked, Himiko was going to be much more present, storywise. The mage had been fairly absent the last two chapters, making an astounding resurgence during the age of the student council and Angie’s death. Now that Angie had officially “died”, it was time for the cameras to get borderline invasive with the mage’s emotional wellbeing. Present Himiko would rather not watch that._

_“...That’s what I’m avoiding,” Himiko responds with a sardonic smile._

_“Oh, I didn’t realize,” Rantaro replies, moving over to sit at the edge of her bed. “Too embarrassing for you?”_

_Yes. Severely. Every time she looks at the old her, Himiko can’t help but cringe. The girl on the television screen was so naive. So incredibly lackluster to the point that it annoyed Himiko. The outside world would not treat her kindly._

_“I guess,” The former mage answers with a lazy shrug. “I just don’ like watching old me. She’s boring.”_

_“Hey, don’t be too mean to her. She’s got some pretty cool magic up her sleeve that’ll turn you into a frog,” Rantaro teases._

_“And what else?” Himiko mumbles._

_“Hm?”_

_“Nothing. I’ll be there in a bit.”_

_Despite telling Rantaro she was going to move, Himiko barely shifts from where she’s sitting. She stares at her feet, almost as if expecting them to reach the floor and begin motoring out of the room, but they only swing halfheartedly over the bed. With a heavy sigh, the redhead drags her hands tiredly over her face._

_“No energy lately, huh?” In the middle of his sentence, Rantaro falls back onto her mattress, cascading himself casually against the bed. As soon as he’s on his back, staring up at the ceiling, he exhales through his teeth. “This was a mistake. I’m going to be so lightheaded when I sit back up.”_

_“I was thinking about that,” Himiko nods, a crooked smile slowly rising up her face. “I’d join you, but I don’t think I’d be able to get back up… heehee.”_

“...That _tired?”_

_“Nyeh, it’s just been--” She stops abruptly mid-sentence, wincing at the word choice. Her signature catchphrase slips so easily out of her mouth. “A lot… I guess. I dunno.”_

_“Yeah, fair enough. Danganronpa isn’t much help, either.”_

_“Exactly,” There’s a pause, with Himiko still staring directly at their feet. Against her best wishes, she’s still not moving. “...Sorry.”_

_Rantaro raises an eyebrow, “For what? You don’t have to apologize.”_

_“No… I’m just being all…” She doesn’t have the words to fully explain. “I dunno.”_

_“I know you don’t wanna watch the show, but you still have to go…” The green teenager flicks his finger in the air, signifying that he suddenly had an idea to share. “Know what? If you go to the day room, I’ll do something else with you while the others watch the show. You can crush me at Uno again. Or I could redo your nails.”_

_Himiko looks down at her fingers. The purple nail polish Rantaro had applied three weeks ago was chipped now, whittled down with her nails after days of mindlessly picking at them. They could use a repaint. They’re sad to look at. There were tiny beads of blood beginning to bloom under her left index fingernail. Similar to Maki, whose nails were always red from constant biting, she had been gnawing at that specific nail rather absentmindedly the past few hours._

_“How brotherly of you,” Himiko quips. Rantaro replies with that signature shrug of his. “And you know how they are…. They want you to watch the whole thing. ‘Less you got a note,” She grumbles, almost childishly. “...Couldn’t get one.”_

_“Probably because you’re not dying. I can’t remember a whole ton about Chapter Four, but I don’t think you did anything too embarrassing.”_

_“I didn’t do_ anything. _The entire game,” Himiko corrects sourly, kicking her legs back and forth. “I just… slept, cried a little, and… I dunno--_ Survived, _I guess.”_

_Rantaro’s eyebrows furrow, but it’s not too serious, “Hey, that’s not true.”_

_“No… It’s pretty true… I didn’t do a whole ton…”_

_“Just because you weren’t fistfighting Monokuma yourself doesn’t mean you_ didn’t do anything.” 

_“I-I don’t know… I’m just…” Himiko is quickly realizing that what she’s saying might be a little too telling of her currently lacking emotional state. “I’m just tired right now… I’m not… thinking straight…”_

_“You did way more than I did, may I add,” The taller teenager jokes from where he lies. It’s obvious he wants to sit back up, but he knows the sudden dizzy spell would not be worth it. “I mean-- I popped in and popped out.”_

_“Yeah, but you…”_

_Were fairly important to the plot, even if that meant you dying? Held intrigue despite being a small character? Independent? Not entirely dependent on a secondary source for your own sanity? Actively present emotions-wise? Tried to uncover mysteries and escape from the very beginning? Starred in the previous season where he survived up till the end through determination and independence, not just sheer luck? Not shaped like a twelve year old? There were a lot of answers she could use to fill in the blank._

_“...Nevermind,” Is what she chooses, quickly backtracking again._

_Rantaro squints playfully, “What?”_

_“No, nevermind.”_

_“Wait, you have to tell me, now.”_

_“I’m going back to sleep,” Himiko slurs, crawling back to her pillow and quickly slamming her head back against it. The hospital pillows were never all that comfortable, but to the redhead they were one of the most comfortable things in the world. She could close her eyes and let hours pass by on that thing._

_“Himiko, what is it?” Rantaro insists. With a sudden gust of determination, the teenager pushes himself back up to a seated position. Himiko could see the exact moment he knew he messed up, watched as he blue-screened. His eyes remain open as the boy concentrates on not passing out, before he blinks and turns back towards the redhead. “I nearly just passed out for you. You should have seen that.”_

_“I did, and now I’m gonna stop talking…” She drones. “...Starting now.”_

_“There’s gotta be something bothering you.”_

_“I don’t know.”_

_“...You really don’t--”_

_“I don’t know!_ I don’t know. _That’s the problem,” Himiko replies a little too loudly, sitting up with an abruptness that would make Rantaro faint if he attempted to copy. She quickly shrinks, her voice returning to a quiet mumble as she continues with a disheartening, “......Could you leave me alone, please?”_

_Knowing that she might have hurt his feelings with just how sudden that was, she quickly buries her face back into the pillow. Rantaro does not move, despite being asked to leave. In fact, it doesn’t sound as if he shifted at all. It’s very quiet._

_Himiko doesn’t have to be amazing at reading people’s emotions or social cues to understand that she probably just ended the conversation right then and there. And not on an amazing note. It’s the first time in days that Himiko begins to feel emotional, begins to feel this unruly heaviness in her throat that threatens to spill over. It’s the first time she’s actually had to actively fight back tears in two weeks, at such a weird, inconvenient time, as well. Himiko is sad, she reckons. Or maybe irritated. Either way, it’s a painful feeling that festers in her throat and trembles at her lips rather impolitely. She could only bury her face further into her thin pillow and hope that Rantaro leaves, taking all of this uncalled for emotion with him._

_But he’s still there. He’s not being invasive or spiteful about it, but was instead simply sitting on the edge of Himiko’s bed in contrite silence._

_“...I know this it’s not the greatest… but you still have to go to the day room,” He starts softly. “Either that, or… I need some sort of explanation to tell the nurses. They don’t really take ‘I’m tired’ as an excuse.”_

_“I don’t know how to explain anything,” Himiko replies into her pillow, her voice warbling pretty tellingly. Understanding that her sentences sound muffled and rather impolite, she wearily turns herself around. “I really just don’t know how to explain… I don’t feel like-- Like I’m a--”_

_The question is: does she go down this road? Does she try to verbalize this heavily complicated…_ thing _that’s been weighing her down? Was there even much of an explanation at all? Every time she tries to explain to her therapist why she was feeling this immensely tired, it all comes down to “a lack of motivation”, explained through a series of nonchalant “mhm’s” and “sures” when responding to her therapist’s yes or no questions._

 _Rantaro does not rush her as she repeatedly opens and closes her mouth, attempting to piece together_ some _sort of explanation for him to bring back to the nurses. Nothing seemed important enough. Rantaro was right. “I’m tired” won’t cut it._

 _“I don’t feel like…” Saying this out loud was difficult. Her mouth and brain weren’t cooperating with each other “Like I’m a-- Like I’m a_ person… _anymore.”_

_Rantaro quirks an eyebrow. It wasn’t the most outrageous claim, especially considering how all of them were fictional characters with loose attachments to the real world, but he still makes an effort to be concerned._

_“What do you mean?” He asks, because there’s no way Himiko can just say something like that and not further elaborate- something she was dreading._

_Himiko sighs. Her exhale is shaky as she pushes herself begrudgingly up to a seated position._

_“I look at that person on the screen and I just…_ hate _her, y’know?” It’s not the best explanation, she reckons, and it’s definitely not the smoothest one, either. Her words are slurred and jagged sounding. “She’s-- She’s so… so_ boring _and unhelpful! Shuichi and everybody are trying to do their best and all I’m doing is being dumb in the background--”_

_“Hey, you have to remember: Shuichi’s the protagonist. Of course they’re gonna make him seem more important,” Rantaro adds firmly, before retreating. “...Sorry. Continue.”_

_“...I don’t want to_ be _her anymore. But I don’t know-- I just don’t know what I--” Her shoulders raise to her ears. At first, it seems like a shrug, but it eventually looks like she’s hunching in on herself. Intentionally making herself even smaller. “I don’t really know who… I am, anymore. I think.”_

 _The more she thinks about what she said, the less it makes sense. It’s barely an explanation and_ barely _a good reason to skip out on Danganronpa, at least to the hospital’s standards. It makes her cringe as soon as it leaves her mouth. It makes her feel stupid just saying it out loud, confiding in somebody who probably had_ so much more _to deal with than she did. She had it much better than Rantaro did, than_ a lot _of people here did. She_ survived, _for Pete’s sake. She doesn’t have the medical issues that her friends do, doesn’t have the physical problems or the emotional trauma that came with dying at Danganronpa’s hands. And she has the nerve to complain? To be unhappy? To not have energy and be completely unmotivated?_

_The tears that had been missing for two weeks suddenly began streaming down her cheeks once more, falling without permission. She can feel the water running down her face with little signs of stopping, and quickly moves to hide her face with her hands._

_“So I just-- I can’t find any reason to… to_ do _anything, anymore…” Her lower lip wobbles. It’s pathetic. She’s pathetic and she’s crying. “S-Sorry… That was probably way more than you were bargaining for, huh…”_

_“No… Hey, not at all,” Rantaro dismisses, waving his hands in front of him. “In fact, come here.”_

_The taller boy reaches over to engulf Himiko from the side, pulling her into his chest with a sad exhale from his nose. The room is so cold, but Rantaro is surprisingly warm. Himiko’s shoulders jolt in sporadic intervals, in rhythm with her silent hiccuping, but other than that she’s surprisingly still. It’s surprisingly quiet._

_The moment isn’t cathartic at all. She can still feel this icky emotion in her stomach, could still feel sorrow wedging itself into her throat and refusing to leave. She’s crying, but nothing about it feels freeing. Nothing about these choked sobs escaping through her lips feel rejuvenating. She feels just as tired, just as exhausted and spent, but now there are hot tears running down her face. Her jaw clenches and begins to ache with how tightly it was being forced together. It doesn’t feel like it did in the killing game. It feels terrible. She wants to get rid of this feeling so badly._

So _badly._

_“P-Please don’t tell Tenko…” Himiko warbles into the taller teen’s shoulder._

_“What? Why wouldn’t I?” Rantaro answers, pulling back and facing her with a pointed look of concern._

_“Because I don’t want her to know I’m all--” Hiccup, “I’m all upset…”_

_“Himiko, you’ve been in this room for two weeks, now. I think she’s starting to catch on,” The green teenager replies with joking sarcasm. Himiko releases an even louder sob, not latching on to the sarcasm and instead growing more angry at herself for being so tired and inactive. Rantaro winces at his poor choice of words. “But she only wants to help you, really.”_

_“No… I know she-- she wants to help me, I love her for that, really…” Himiko explains, wiping at her eyes with her tiny hands. “But it’s just… I sh-shouldn’t be…_ complaining, _you know? I don’t even have it that bad and I’m still being so--!”_

_“You’re allowed to have problems, Himi. Trauma isn’t a contest.”_

_“I-I-I know…”_ _She doesn’t. She knows people have it worse than her, and to her that is what determines whether she gets to complain or not. “But it’s just so… s-so stupid… I-I’m so_ tired…”

_“Of course. Nobody said you had to recover at the speed of lightning,” Rantaro conveys, placing a hand on the redhead’s jolting shoulder. “This isn’t a situation that many people have... been in. It’s going to… be hard, Himiko. I won’t lie to you. But you still…” His eyes drift momentarily, almost as if he was unconsciously second-guessing himself. “Have other people, right?”_

_The redhead sits in silence. Expressing this garbled, jumbled mess of a problem was perhaps the hardest thing she’s had to do all week, and has done absolutely nothing but made her even more exhausted. She doesn’t know how she’ll convey this to Tenko. She’s barely conveyed it to Rantaro._

_“I don’t want to be..._ Himiko Yumeno. _Or-- Err-- The Ultimate Magician,” At this point, the redhead is just saying words and hoping Rantaro understands even slightly. To her surprise, the green teenager continues to nod along. He’s great at keeping composure. It was almost like he understood completely. “But I don’t know who else I can be… I-It’s so_ confusing _and I just can’t-- Just can’t_ understand.” 

_“Nobody’s expecting you to understand. I… can’t say I understand all of this, either. It’s been a rough month for all of us,” The taller teenager sighs, resting an arm against a bent knee. “But nobody’s saying you…_ have _to be Himiko Yumeno, Ultimate Magician. You can… make your own Himiko, you know?” He pauses for a second, obviously thinking of his next words. “What was that you said in the simulator? What you’re feeling is real, and that’s all that matters?”_

_Himiko doesn’t know what she’s feeling. That was very much the issue at hand. She’s always had a difficult time distinguishing and verbalizing her own emotions. It’s a trait that’s been with her for as long as her fake backstory went. So all she could feel was this unexplainable heaviness that glued her to her bed, that makes it impossible to get up in the morning._

_She doesn’t have any purpose anymore. She’s not a magician, and has no shows to be performing the next morning. She has no new magic tricks she needs to rehearse. She has no class trial she needs to attend or mandatory breakfast she needs to show up to. Himiko doesn’t have a reason to do anything, to_ feel _anything. To_ be _Himiko Yumeno._

_It very much sounded like they were discussing a fictional character. Like “Himiko Yumeno, Ultimate Magician” was a character that the redhead played, somebody she had only pretended to be and grown to despise. Which was definitely true, in many aspects. The advice Rantaro had given was flimsy at best, definitely not his strongest moment of comfort._

_But somehow… it resonated with Himiko. Not immediately, and definitely not in that moment. Not even for the next few days, in fact. But eventually, after that conversation was over and she spent another long period of time waiting for her new meds to kick in, it came back to her. The idea that she could_ be _another person. She doesn’t have to_ be _this person she hates so much. Or maybe she was just trying to erase that side of her entirely. Maybe she was just trying to become somebody she simply was not supposed to be. Himiko takes it much too literally, looks back on that conversation and addresses that the_ real _and_ only _way she can solve this problem is to erase_ old _Himiko entirely. Become this new, energetic persona._

_But in the present, as she was sitting dumbly on the edge of her bed, it just doesn’t feel comforting. She just can’t feel anything. Her body has run cold again. The tears stop falling, stopping at her eyes but no longer teetering down her cheeks._

_“Do I still have to-- To go watch Danganronpa…?” Himiko chokes._

_Rantaro exhales in laughter, dissolving into slight laughter before he cuts himself off again, “Unfortunately, you’re probably still going to have to go.”_

_The redhead slumps further, falling forward into her knees. Rantaro pats her sympathetically on the back._

_“Sorry, Himi… I know it’s hard…” He sighs, a small, pitying smile curling his lips upwards. “I could carry you, if it makes a difference.”_

_A pause. It’s beginning to look like going to the day room was the only option at this point. Her face was bound to be red and puffy and there’s a terrible headache that was beginning to pulse behind her eyes because of how forcefully she was holding back tears._

_But she has to agree. Normally she wouldn’t care for being reprimanded, but the nurses were starting to catch on to this apathy and might drag Tenko down with her for disobeying, “...Yeah. Yeah, okay.”_

_It’s incredibly easy to pick up Himiko. All Rantaro has to do is slightly lean over and allow the redhead to lazily throw herself at his back. She clings to him with little strength. Rantaro stands up with little balance._

_“I’m leaving my walker here,” He narrates as he approaches the door. Himiko hums into his shoulder in response. “If I pass out, keep walking.”_

_“If you pass out, I’m going down with you,” She drawls sleepily. “The floor is comfortable.”_

_Rantaro laughs again, that very laid-back chuckle of his that jolts his shoulders up briefly. Himiko’s head goes with it. She can only muster a small smile, nothing stronger than that._

_She can muster nothing stronger than that._

_"Rantaro?" The redhead mutters, barely lifting her head up._

_"Hm?"_

_"...Thanks. For coming to get me."_

_Rantaro smiles warmly in her direction._

_Himiko's old Master used to tell her she had to “fake it till she makes it” when it came to performances. She had always had this bad shaking habit whenever she worked herself up backstage, so her Master would arrive at her side and tell her to put on this massive phony smile. That if you pretend you have energy and charisma that eventually your brain will trick itself into being confident with you. It’s a… physcology thing, or whatever._

_She knows she has to do something like that. She has to do_ something. _But she’s so tired. She’s dreary and numb and hollow. Himiko can’t see the merit in trying._

_But she can’t keep being this character. She can’t keep playing this part. She has to be… Has to be her “own Himiko”. That’s what Rantaro said, right?_

_Maybe this really was just an elaborate case of “faking it till she makes it”. It’s a deep hole that Himiko has dug herself into. And it’s going to take a lot of “faking it till she makes it” to get herself out of here. Everything about her feels heavy. It’s like her body was actively fighting against the choice she was about to make, but she knows she has to make the choice, anyways. She has to be bolder, be better. Be_ something.

_Although a small part of her brain was beginning to badger at her to be more lively, it doesn’t stop her from taking a nap on Tenko’s shoulder as soon as she arrives in the day room._


	35. i could go off the deep end (i could kill all my best friends)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> good morning! day four of the convention is a go! :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY GANG how are you guys :)))

_ Miu dreams again. _

_ It isn’t much different, but then again Miu has become so accustomed to this dream that it was beginning to feel repetitive. This recurring nightmare was starting to become one of the only constants in Miu’s life, considering how wild her reality has been lately. She blinks, realizes she’s once again standing on that familiar scaffold, and sighs. It’s getting annoying, at this point. _

_ The crowd surrounding her consists of basically the same people as last time. Old nurses, both fictional and non-fictional, scatter throughout the ocean of people. Her class was still there, with Kaede very visibly in the front. The enforcement team stands off to the right, with Sayaka and Akane murmuring quietly to each other. In fact, everybody is very quiet. Nobody looks immensely angry or even repulsed at the strawberry blonde like they usually did. The crowd gathered around Miu’s usual spot, waiting for something to happen, none of them reacting to her presence with bitterness or disdain. They looked ready, almost. Absorbed. _

_ Kokichi still stands in front of her. He’s smiling. Miu almost rolls her eyes as she continues to scan for irregularities.  _

_ One simple look down at her hand would make it clear that she was holding something. In previous encounters, Miu would sometimes be given a rather useless tool to hold in her right hand, usually a hammer that would only serve as a reminder of her failed murder attempt. Last night, it had been this ambiguous blob, this dark grey cloud of undetermined stature that crowded around her hand. Tonight, it had finally taken shape. _

_ It’s a handgun. The weapon sits comfortably in her right hand, locked and loaded, ready to fire. Her index finger rests over the trigger. Fuyuhiko’s brief teachings from two days ago had taught her that you should never put your finger over the trigger unless you were planning to shoot, but she finds herself brushing the tip of her index finger over the trigger, anyways. It felt dangerous. It was thrilling, almost, having this much power in your grasp.  _

_ Miu stares at the firearm, head pointed down, mimicking the gun’s barrel as it faces the wooden flooring of the scaffold. Written in bold lettering on a piece of masking tape, stuck to the top of the handgun, was the name ‘AKANE’. _

_ Kokichi starts the reenactment, his sharp smile already beginning to paint a familiar scene. It’s the exact same line as last time, his words acidic and untrusting as he chirps a buoyant, “...Or are you here to kill me?” _

_ “Yeah,” Miu answers, raising the gun and shooting him. _

_ The crowd cheers. The dream ends. It’s the first time in months that Miu’s gotten a full night’s sleep. _

_ -=+=- _

“...Miu? Miu, are you awake…?”

The former inventor peacefully blinks her eyes open, slowly awakening. Sunlight beams through the uncovered window, showering over the bed’s oddly well-kept sheets. It appeared as if Miu had not only slept in the bed last night, but hadn’t been kicking and turning in her sleep. In fact she woke up hugging her pillow contently, the blanket resting neatly on top of her.

Miu rises sleepily, rubbing at her eyelids. Hair falls over her shoulders. She doesn’t feel sweaty. Usually she wakes up in some sort of cold sweat.

The strawberry blonde turns over and notices Sayaka standing to the left of her bed. The pop sensation is already in full makeup and hair, wearing a quaint yellow dress and denim jacket. Kazuichi stands off to the side in a graphic t-shirt and jeans, once again attempting to begin a whispered conversation with Mukuro. The Ultimate Soldier, wearing a long-sleeved black tee, cargo pants, and the same black mask, was unresponsive. She stood at the door with her arms crossed, acting as a bouncer.

“Morning!” Sayaka begins gently. Kazuichi sees Miu waking up and offers a friendly wave. Mukuro nods at her curtly. 

“What… the fuck…?” Miu groans in reply, words slurred. “H-How did you… get in my room…?”

Sayaka and Kazuichi immediately turn towards Mukuro. Obviously the Ultimate Soldier had given them the idea to enter Miu’s room unannounced, most likely non-verbally, considering her stubborn silence. Mukuro stares back, before raising her shoulders in an inconclusive shrug.

“The door was open,” Kazuichi answers for her.

“Huh…!?” The former inventor whines, eyes still squinted as they adjust to the light. “Kaede, you dumbass, you left the door--” 

She turns over, expression sour, only to find Kaede no longer there. In her place, a Kaede-shaped dent in the bed. Her personal belongings were no longer on her bedside table, all traces of the former pianist gone from the room. The blonde had already left. Which was weird, because Miu always woke up around the same time she did. They were supposed to wait for each other if one of them woke up before the other did. 

Miu turns back to the small group with a dumb, “...Huh.”

“It’s 10:30 AM,” Sayaka says. “You’ve been sleeping for a while! We have… things to do today, so Mondo us wanted to come find you.”

Miu blinks in shock. Holy shit. She slept through the goddamn morning. 

She’s very tempted to start cursing them out for waking her from perhaps the best sleep she’s had all year, but stops herself abruptly. She’s still fairly sleepy, but surprisingly not cranky this morning. All signs of a good night’s rest. Miu stretches her arms and rolls her shoulders back, blinking a few times to fully adjust to the lighting. If she had slept through the entire morning, perhaps it was best that Sayaka woke her up. 

It was the final day, after all. The time limit concludes tonight. The enforcement team has a very, very tough job to do. 

But for some reason, Miu doesn’t feel all that nervous.

She swings her legs over the side of her bed and pushes herself enthusiastically off of it, taking a second to look down at her own outfit. Miu had slept in a rather baggy white t-shirt with English words written down its front, something comfortable from deep within her suitcase. Her pants were some old grey sweatpants that she had cut just above the knees, an impulsive decision that derived from a particularly hot summer morning. With little effort, the former inventor tucks the forepart of her shirt into her sweatpants and ruffles her hair until it sits somewhat neatly on her shoulders.

“Good enough,” She decides gruffly. “Wh-What do you need me for?”

“Well… I guess you have a bit of a choice in front of you,” Sayaka answers, hands folded neatly. “You can either do patrol work, or you could hang with Kazuichi and try breaking the locks again. You’ll be with a few other programmers, as well,” Her eyes shift away from Miu’s gaze for a brief moment, before they return a little more urgently. “But, um… you remember what I told you yesterday, right…?”

That nothing was working? That nobody could get the locks open even if they tried? Was that what Sayaka was referring to? Maybe the Ultimate Pop Sensation was trying to subtly tell Miu that working on the locks was a little pointless, especially as the time limit draws nearer. That maybe taking the patrol job would be more beneficial to her.

“What do I have to do for patrol work?” Miu grills.

Sayaka shrugs as Mukuro straight up leaves the room, obviously giving nothing to the conversation at hand. The Ultimate Soldier sighs heavily as she exits, as if her chest was hurting. Kazuichi succumbs to his failed attempt at getting her to talk, but does not let it bother him for too long as he immediately grows distracted by Miu’s closet.

“Asking for AHL members, mostly. You won’t be doing any of the actual…  _ security _ work, considering you don’t have a weapon…” The pop sensation expresses. Miu huffs through her nose.  _ Still no gun.  _ “I have to take whichever job you don’t want to do, so you’ll be going alone for the most part… but if you want, I could get Akane to go with you?”

“You’d be on lock duty if I took patrol?” Miu asks, curious as to why she was unavailable to supervise.

“Oh, no, I’m no good with code,” She giggles. “I’d mainly be running back and forth to find things they might need, or grab any tools. Like an assistant!”

“Hey, could I borrow this?” Kazuichi requests, not paying attention to the other two girls, head in his own little world. He holds up an oversized green jacket with very large pockets. Miu can’t remember when she got that. She’s pretty sure she woke up one night and had it on. “These pockets are MASSIVE... Gundham could  _ totally _ smuggle, like... a small animal in this.”

“What the fuck? No!! Give me that--!” Miu hisses, yanking the jacket out of his hands. Kazuichi opens his mouth to retaliate, but quickly winces.

“Ow!” The mechanic suddenly yelps, grabbing at his bottom lip. “Aw, hell! Bit my lip….”

“Yeah, thank your scary-ass shark teeth for that!!! You’re  _ lucky _ you’re not gettin’ any pussy or you’d be sendin’ a buncha girls to the fuckin’ E.R.!!”

“N-Not cool!! I’m  _ bleeding _ over here!!” Kazuichi retorts, voice muffled as he holds his hand over his mouth.  _ “Hate _ these stupid things…”

“Then why did you get them, dumbass!?”

“Wh-What do you think!?  _ Obviously _ promos!!”

“Guys, we’re all stressed. Let’s not yell. Go run some toilet paper under the tap and hold it over your lip,” Sayaka advises, turning the mechanic by the shoulders and lightly pushing him towards the bathroom. Kazuichi grumbles to himself the entire way there. With a soft sigh, the singer turns back to Miu. “Any idea what you want to do?”

Miu blanks, “U-Uh… Well… First: put a bra on,” Sayaka squints playfully at her. “But then I might...” 

The former inventor turns back around to her bed, staring briefly at the empty space Kaede had left as she ties the jacket around her waist. Her brain instantly tells her that she should find the former pianist, she should _find_ Kaede and talk to her. Maybe ask how she was doing. God forbid, maybe Miu should _check up_ _on her friend._ Kaede would do the same, and she surely must be worried with the time limit approaching at lightning speed. So worried, in fact, that she seems to have just… left for breakfast without Miu. And quite possibly for lunch, as well.

But the former inventor can’t talk with Kaede all afternoon. It’s vital that Miu work hard today. Slacking off is simply not allowed. Which is why working with Kazuichi might also be somewhat of a reasonable option, even if trying to break the locks seems a bit futile this far into the convention. Plus, if she skips out on patrol work, she could go search for K1-B0 more and pretend that she’s working on the locks. If anybody from the enforcement team catches her looking underneath tables for a laptop while she’s supposed to be doing patrol work, it would be a little harder to explain.

“Fuck. Whatever, uh…” Miu begins patting around her pockets, despite knowing it was rather pointless. “Got a coin?”

It’s a tough decision, and that itself made a deep part of the former inventor feel a little bad. She was actually stopping to  _ think _ about whether or not she fuck around with the locks or talk to Kaede. The answer should be obvious, right? If she was really a good friend, she should go check up on Kaede.

Sayaka hums, reaching into an over-the-shoulder black purse she was wearing to grab a small coin from her wallet. The pop sensation balances the coin carefully on her thumb.

“Heads or tails?” She asks. “Winner takes patrol duty.”

“I-It’s your choice, heads or tails…” Miu offers with a timid shrug. Her shy expression soon morphs into a sheepish grin. “...But you should know that I like hea--”

Sayaka’s face drops, “Stop.”

_ “Hee--! _ O-Okay, damn!! Tails!!!!”

The pop sensation nods, smiling to let the former inventor know she wasn’t too angry at the tiny inappropriate joke. She flicks her thumb, and the coin goes spinning into the air.

-=+=-

Miu finds Kaede practicing. 

The rehearsal seemed to be over, with three out of four members of this violin quartet already packing up and exiting the tiny office they were in. All of them mutter tensely to each other about how they will proceed the rest of the day now that their one set activity was finished. Kaede stayed behind, a tiny white violin resting underneath her chin, looking forward at the music. She plays the violin quite hauntingly, the music seemingly practiced despite Kaede never having picked up the instrument before the convention. It’s an old tune that Miu can’t recognize. The former pianist plays not the melody, but rather a low harmony that feels incomplete, almost out of place. She’s turned away from the entrance, sitting down on a foldable chair, missing Miu entirely as she continues her practice. It was always like her to keep practicing, to make sure everything was perfect.

Kirumi sits at her side, reading a dense book that Miu would get bored of within the first two pages. She must have stood in as Kaede’s translator, considering Shuichi was nowhere to be found in the room. 

“...And she does seem rather aloof, doesn’t she?” The former maid was talking underneath Kaede’s violin. The pair seem to be having a conversation, even if it was Kirumi who was doing most of the talking. “Perhaps we should be more cautious with how we present ourselves around her. Watch what we say, to be more precise. She may very well be choosing who--”

Her mouth stops moving. Upon noticing Miu’s entrance, Kirumi immediately lets Kaede know with a nod in the former inventor’s direction. 

Kaede turns around. She’s wearing the exact same thing she was wearing yesterday: some preppy, yet incredibly disheveled outfit in her signature bright color scheme. Mascara smudges at the corners of her eyes and her hair appears a bit wavier, making it clear she hadn’t straightened or done anything to it this morning. Kaede’s smile is duller than usual as she waves, gesturing the former inventor in.

Miu merely nods back.

“Hey, Blondie. I’m looking for some people. I’ve just got some questions,” The strawberry blonde starts.

Seriously, Miu? No “hello”? No “how are you”? The nicer questions seemed to have been pushed back by this sudden authority of hers, from this urgency to find answers. Miu has skipped past the small talk in favor of information.

Kirumi stares, shares an unreadable look with Kaede, and then turns back to the former inventor with that customer-service smile of hers, “I’ll let you two have a moment.”

She promptly leaves the room. Kaede very silently exhales through her nose, in a manner that almost resembled a sigh.

_ What do you mean?  _ The former pianist asks as soon as the violin gets returned gently to its stand.

Miu can’t be too specific about this. Sayaka had made it very clear: _Nobody else can know about Plan B._ **_Nobody._** That included Miu’s class, and that included Kaede. The former inventor has to use that big brain of hers to steer the topic away from anything too detailed.

“Enforcement team wants to know if any’ne here’s a threat. Just wanted to…. Ask….” Miu elaborates vaguely, before clearing her throat. “B-But, um--! How are you? Doing?”

Kaede takes a very, very long time to think before she gestures,  _ Fine! How are you? _

“Great,” Miu answers, which was actually pretty true. The subject changes very quickly. “So, got anythin’ useful? Just don’t want anyone dangerous walkin’ around, that’s all.”

That was not all.

_ A-H-L members, right?  _ Kaede clarifies slowly, shifting around in her seat. Miu nods. The former pianist raises her hands to say something, but lets them drop back into her lap after she realizes she couldn’t think of anything.  _ No, I’m not too sure. Actually, I kinda want to talk to you about-- _

“Really?  _ Nothing?” _ Miu interrupts. If she can’t get information from the blonde, then this conversation was practically useless for her. A waste of time. “You’ve been here the entire time and haven’t seen  _ anything? _ The fuck have you been doin’ this whole time, Bakamatsu?? Jerkin’ it!?”

Kaede huffs through her nose, her cheeks puffing out in irritation,  _ No! I just don’t know of anybody! Is that seriously all you came to talk to me about? _

“N-No!!” Yes, it basically was. “I-I-I just have a job, that’s all! Get off my dick!!!!”

The former pianist looks at Miu and sighs. There’s something disheartened behind her eyes, an expression of disappointment that the former inventor just couldn’t look past. She has no concealer under her blue eyes, making the purple bags underneath them much more visible. Did she sleep at all last night? Miu had barely seen her at all yesterday, and had fallen asleep much earlier than the former pianist had. She’s not sure what Kaede has been up to lately. Besides violin, of course. Which,  _ of course, _ Kaede was just  _ exceptional _ at despite never having played the instrument before. Of course.

_ Okay, _ Kaede signs quickly, her movements uncertain. Her eyebrows knit together and her posture stiffens as she sits rigidly in her chair. Like a disappointed teacher. She always seemed disappointed in Miu, nowadays.  _ Well, that’s… all I know, I think. _

“You think?” Miu parrots sarcastically. 

_ Yeah… Sorry, I’ve just been a little… out of it, lately-- _ The former pianist suddenly stops, sitting upright with a snap of her fingers.  _ Yes! Wait, yes, actually! There was something a little weird that happened when we were trying to find Kokichi as a class, and-- _

Despite her nose twitching at the former supreme leader’s name, Miu still perks up at the new information, “What? And what??”

_ And we-- Well, they all started arguing, and the entire thing was really messy… Nobody there was listening! It was so annoying!  _ Kaede pouts, growing sidetracked but quickly snapping back to focus once the strawberry blonde flashes her a discontented look.  _ Anyways, Tenko and Himiko were talking to each other while everybody else was arguing, and Himiko said something a little weird… Something about…  _

Her train of thought snags on a sudden loss of memory, the blonde’s hands curling as she attempts to remember the missing name. The face she pulls implies that it was on the tip of her tongue.

All that Miu was hearing was  _ Himiko. Himiko _ said something a little weird, said something a little suspicious to her already-more-than-suspicious girlfriend. She always seemed to show up again, that redhead. The former mage always managed to poke her head into Miu’s business, despite having never been this much of a nuisance prior to the convention. Sure, Himiko was annoying and small and said “nyeh” a lot and didn’t have any tits, but she was never this actively  _ nosy. _ Miu would blame her affiliation with Kokichi for all of this suspicion, but even Shuichi, the Ultimate Detective and somebody considerably close with Kokichi, was not being this irritating. Was this all because Miu shoved the redhead that one time? Maybe the world was shoving Himiko into everything she does in order to guilt trip her. Sorta like a middle finger in the former inventor’s direction, in the form of a pint-sized, twig of a child.

_ I know the name, I know the name! _ Kaede waves. She was trying to convince Miu, but it looked a lot more like she was attempting to convince herself considering she wasn’t maintaining eye contact.  _ Himiko started saying that somebody named… J-U-N… _

Kaede pauses. The letter ‘N’ hangs in the air. This time, as the sentence trails off without a solid ending, Kaede looked a lot less confused. In fact, she simply stands there with a stony expression, her face hardened unreadably as the name and Miu’s one shot of getting information flies out the window. Her hands drop to her lap. Miu pulls a face.

_...You first, _ Kaede finally signs.

“H-Huh?”

_ I said, you first, _ Kaede repeats, leaning back in her chair. She throws her hands at Miu, gesturing informally for the former inventor to begin. 

“Wh-Wh-What do you  _ mean, _ first?” Miu interrogates, checking down at her phone for the time. 11 AM. She’s giving herself ten minutes to have this conversation with Kaede before she reports back to Mondo for more instructions. “First for  _ what?” _

The former pianist blows air from her nose once again,  _ You know, you haven’t been telling me about what the enforcement team has been doing. _

“Wh-Who cares!?” Miu replies defensively, instantly recoiling in on herself. “What were you saying about Himiko--?”

_ Could you listen, please?  _ Kaede interrupts, pushing herself up from her chair in a way that startles the strawberry blonde backwards.  _ Geez, nobody has been listening to me at all! I’m getting real sick of it!  _

“If you haven’t noticed, it’s a little fucking hard to hear you!” The former inventor retorts. Kaede’s face scrunches. “What did Himiko say!?”

_ I’m not telling you until you tell me why you need to know!  _ At Kaede’s signed argument, Miu rolls her eyes. It made a lot of sense. That was what stung. It was a really, really reasonable thing for Kaede to be mad about.  _ Friendship is a two-way street, remember? We need to meet halfway! _

Miu sighs in exasperation, head unconsciously flipping to check behind her before turning forward again, “Are we having this conversation  _ again? Right now?? _ I’m not some fuckin’ toddler you have to coddle, Kaede! I’m  _ grown.”  _

She wants to make a joke concerning what else about her is  _ ‘grown’ _ but she opts against it at the last second.

_ I’m not-- _ Kaede quickly scraps that sentence, throwing her hands out in slight frustration before she tries again.  _ Sorry. I’m a bit irritated today. Not… at you. You’re not a kid, and that’s not what I’m saying. But you understand how fishy you’re sounding right now, right? You get that,  _ **_right?_ ** __

“God, whatever!! I’ll just ask donkey-lips herself!!” Miu declares. “I’ve gotta go, there’s shit I have to be doing. I’ll…” She has to come up with some sort of excuse, with some sort of empty promise to make Kaede feel a little better. “See you at lunch.”

The former pianist’s face crumbles in exasperation. Miu turns to leave as Kaede exhales wearily, turning her head to the side with a low, hoarse whisper of, “See,  _ this _ is why everybody--”

“Everybody  _ what?” _

Kaede’s gaze raises slightly, pausing in place. Her head was almost to the floor, her eyes peering upwards to meet Miu’s.

_ Nothing,  _ She signs dismissively. 

“No, what? Everybody  _ what?” _ Miu insists, stopping just short of the door.

The former pianist doesn’t bother with a reply. She waves her hand in the strawberry blonde’s direction, gesturing Miu away as she turns to grab her bag, turning her body completely. Miu is cut out of the conversation. Clearly Kaede was attempting to mollify her own anger, halting the discussion in its tracks before it diverted into yet another argument. They were both tense. They were both tired and angry and terrified. Maybe the former pianist was right to avoid the conversation before it went any further.

But Miu was not ready to back down today. She’s thinking about Plan B, about what Sayaka had told her the previous day. Selection of the forty people would very likely consist of those who are considered “traitors”, to who the enforcement team or Danganronpa finds most suspicious. That means the AHL.

Finding these traitors is the best way to absolutely ensure Miu’s safety. If they can find the forty people that this convention demands for, then she gets to worry less about any innocents being killed. About her being thrown into the mix. It was a win-win for everybody; nobody innocent died, forty recruits from what might possibly be a terrorist organization are dead, and Miu gets to live to tell the tale. So, if she has to grill Kaede, so be it. She doesn’t  _ care _ if the former pianist is angry at her. She can care after the time limit expires, after they leave this convention  _ alive. _

“Tell me,” Miu demands, tone icy and oddly collected despite her hot-headed nature. “You’re talking about our class, right? You were talking with our class about this,  _ right?” _

Kaede continues to pack her things, unresponsive. Miu was correct. 

If her class was talking about her behind her back, it surely wasn’t good. There’s something heavy that lurches in the former inventor’s stomach, something hot that makes her nauseous. Like shame, perhaps. Or embarrassment. Either way, it only fuels her fiery desire for answers.

Miu marches forward, head raised high after an impulsive glance behind her, shoulders rolled back, “What did they  _ say, _ Kaede? Everybody  _ what??” _

Kaede flips around. With little hesitation, she very tautly signs,  _ Everybody is  _ **_scared_ ** _ of you.  _

Miu stops dead in her tracks. Kaede copies. It’s suddenly very cold.

The room comes to a very still silence, a noiselessness so telling that it would divert any onlooker who tried to enter in on this tense standoff. There’s something in Miu’s brain that flicks. Not snaps, but flicks. Subtly. She can’t identify what it is, can’t discern just what emotions were processing in that brain of hers. But something clicks together in the back of her mind.

Both girls just stand there. It’s only 11 AM-- 11:16, to be exact. The day has only just gotten started. The time limit is in twelve hours. 

And Miu’s class is  _ scared _ of her.

The former inventor isn’t sure how… to react, to be entirely honest. Usually she was incredibly quick to process things, incredibly speedy when jumping to an emotional reaction or to an abrupt conclusion. But she really doesn’t know how she should feel about this. Well, obviously she  _ should _ feel a little bad. If she liked her class a little more than she did, Kaede’s words would have left a fairly large mark. But she doesn’t like her class, and they don’t like her. They  _ clearly _ don’t like her. They are scared of her, scared of whatever power she yields being on the enforcement team. They have all talked and argued behind Miu’s back, and have expressed genuine worry over the former inventor without her knowledge. And  _ Kaede  _ was there. Miu wasn’t a part of the conversation, for all she knows  _ Kaede _ could have been agreeing with them, agreeing that Miu was a scary, unstable person. 

Miu almost feels like laughing.

It’s weird. She doesn’t feel angry. At least, not at a surface-level. Maybe deep, deep down in her stomach there is complete rage within her, a fury so powerful it makes her want to cry, a guilt so strong it makes her want to be better. But for now, upfront, all Miu wants to do is chuckle. In disbelief, maybe.

Her mouth hangs open and stays there, until she releases a solid, “Huh.”

Kaede’s face twitches, her lips quirking downwards in guilt. She very quickly rushes forward, gesturing towards her friend with repeated signs of,  _ Sorry. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry. _

“No, no,” Miu denies, backing away from Kaede before the former pianist could touch her. There’s a very tiny smile quavering up her cheeks. “Don’t.”

_ They’re just… worried. That’s all. They’re all worried about-- The time limit is coming up and--  _ Kaede tries to correct, before she takes a deep breath.  _ They’re not scared of  _ **_you_ ** _. They’re scared of the enforcement team. Of what they’re going to do. _

Maybe they know about Plan B, somehow. Maybe her class figured out that they’re killing forty people. It  _ was _ Gonta who came up to her in the lighting booth, after all. It  _ was _ Gonta who asked if that rumor was true. Maybe he went back to the class of Season 53 and told them everything about that, told them all with certainty that the enforcement team would choose forty people to kill by the end of this day. And with no criteria to be heard of concerning who will be sacrificed, her class went into a panic. Miu’s class were not only scared of her, but were now banding together to figure out the best way to handle her. And Kaede may or may not be involved. Kaede was  _ probably involved.  _

Kaede was… scared of her? Kaede was scared of Miu? Miu has made her best friend…  _ scared of her? _

“That’s what Kirumi was talking about, right?” Miu asks. Her voice is painfully neutral, her eyes wide in disbelief but a flippant smile running up her face involuntarily. “She thinks I’m acting-- acting fucking  _ ‘aloof’? _ That you need to be  _ careful around me?” _

_ No. No, that wasn’t-- _ Kaede tries, but her lying is pretty easily detected and ignored.

“You both think I’m some sort of  _ bad guy,  _ right? Both of you? Both of you think I’m gonna kill the class, huh?” The former inventor hounds. Her voice starts to waver.  _ “All  _ of you think that,  _ huh!?” _

Kaede rubs furiously at her eyes, looking very close to an agonizing headache. When she starts again, her gestures are incredibly sloppy,  _ I really can’t do this right now, I’m already so stressed and I’ve been trying to keep everybody together so  _ **_please_ ** _ don’t do this right now-- _

“No, I’m going to say this right now. And I want you to listen, because I’m not going to find you at lunch,” Miu insists, tone cold. Kaede turns to her with an irate expression, but can’t hide the glassiness that’s beginning to cloud her eyes. “I don’t care… what they think. Or what-- What-- What that  _ bastard _ Kokichi thinks. Or, what  _ you _ think, since you’re apparently talking to them about all of this--”

Kaede shakes her head,  _ No, I wasn’t, I was trying to get them to listen to me but they weren’t listening I really wasn’t-- _

“Save it, Blondie. I get it,” The former inventor says. She grips Kaede’s arms firmly, both as a very cold form of assurance as well as a way to keep her quiet for a bit while she talks. If it was mean, Miu doesn’t notice. “And it’s okay! Nobody there fucking liked me, of  _ course _ they’re gonna get all pissy when I join a  _ team  _ for once. When I’m a part of a group that actually  _ needs _ me there. Hell-- Maybe even  _ wants _ me there!”

Kaede wants to talk, but all she manages to do is shake her head repeatedly. As if to tell Miu she was wrong about her class not wanting her there.

“So, what  _ I’m  _ going to do is go back to my  _ evil wittle enforcement team, _ and we--'' She uses a sharp finger to gesture between them. “--Will see each other… see each other… Hell, I don’t know. After the time limit. Or, hey, maybe not,” Miu shrugs slightly with her shoulders. “Maybe I’ll get killed for being such a  _ shitty person. _ For-- For being so  _ scary and evil.” _

“You’re not…” Kaede whispers pathetically, but it’s drowned out. __

“I won’t even  _ look _ at your class. How does that sound?” Miu offers. “You won’t have to act all nice around me anymore, Kaede! I-I’ll leave all of you alone, and everything will be  _ fucking fine!!” _

“Miu, what is--?” She’s interrupted by a hearty cough behind her lips. “What’s happening to you--!?

She’s too confident. She’s too brave and cocky. And powerful.

“Bad guy?  _ Bad guy!?”  _ Miu snarls, mainly to herself. 

She lets go of Kaede, no longer engaging with the former pianist as she marches towards the door, growling under her breath the entire way there. This entire conversation has been useful for one thing, and one thing only. She knows where she stands in this convention, now. She knows just how powerful her position is in this killing game, now. 

People always like to question whether an individual would rather be feared or loved when in a state of power. And with nobody to love Miu, it leaves her with one other option.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket. It’s Akane. She’s asking for Miu’s location. There’s an issue regarding a few participants. The body count has been lowered to 35. They need to make amends to their plans. 

“I’ll show them fucking  _ bad guy,”  _ Miu hisses irrationally, mouth moving much faster than any filter her brain might have conjured.

It’s meant for herself, but it is very possible that Kaede also heard it. Miu will never be able to tell, however, as she leaves the office without turning behind her to check.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 35/40


	36. murders of murderers living in fear of it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> good morning! himiko hates that it's day four.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we interrupt Whatever The Fuck Miu is Doing to bring you: himiko yumeno :]

Himiko has been sitting in bed for a damn while, now.

She woke up feeling incredibly, incredibly tense. Her jaw had been set the moment she opened her eyes, a crick in her neck aching her whenever she turned her head to the left or the right. It still pains her to breathe in too heavily, the ache in her back still bruising, which makes all of her yawns rather burning and agitating as she lies face-up on her bed. 

What’s the time? Himiko has no clue. Light pours into the room through the curtains, signaling daytime. She has napped through the third day of this convention and woken up the next morning. Great.

She’s trying to get up, she’s  _ really _ trying, but she keeps flopping over like a seal whenever she tries. Himiko managed to grab her phone maybe an hour ago, and has taken to mindlessly scrolling as she attempts to gain the will to leave the comfort of this room and start the day. However, considering much of her social media was down thanks to whatever complicated technology that was keeping them blocked from the outside, she wasn’t able to do much. Himiko takes to opening an app, forgetting what she was going to do in that app, closing the app, and then remembering what she was going to do in that app, continuing this cycle until eventually she slams her phone on her nightstand and yanks herself out of bed. She can’t do this today. Himiko is going to  _ leave _ this goddamn room and ignore whatever her body was trying to scream at her. She has to be better today.

Day four. How... terrifying.

Tenko was gone. She’s been gone for longer than Himiko has been awake. She’s left a bit of writing on the hotel-provided notepad. Himiko makes it her first priority, to push herself off of the bed and read the note from her girlfriend. One thing at a time! Gotta keep moving forward!!

Tenko’s handwriting is messy, the pencil pushed down so roughly that the sentences appear loud. There are hearts that scatter across the page. 

**Goodmorning!!!! <3 <3**

**You slepd in for a while and I didn't want to wake you up so I left you this note instead!! I’ll be at the dining hall for breakfest but if your still sleeping then I’ll be at dance rehersal :)**

**I’ll come find you for lunch because I think Shuichi wanted to talk to us about all the stuff hapenning tonight**

**Angie also wants to talk**

**Okay see you later!! Hope you had a good sleep!!! <3**

**I love you a lot be safe please. I love you**

**Tenko <3**

Himiko’s lips quirk upwards, her head nodding to the side as she reads. With a soft hum, she places the notepad gently back where it rested. 

‘Shuichi wants to talk about the stuff happening tonight’. ‘Angie also wants to talk’. All things that Himiko will pointedly ignore and lest fester deep in her stomach until the time comes when it all approaches at her with lightning speed to knock her out of those Mary Jane’s she wears all the time. She’ll just push all of…  _ that _ aside and get ready to embrace the day head on. Thinking about the time limit and the heavy talks that will arrive beforehand just makes her feel nauseous, aches her bones and chills her spine. She has to stop thinking about what might happen-- what  _ will _ happen-- when that time limit expires and they don’t have forty traitors. She has to stop thinking about that body count. They still need to kill  _ forty _ traitors. Because otherwise so many people are going to get hurt,  _ so many people.  _ Himiko was lucky last time. But this time that gunfire might just get even  _ luckier _ than what she’s capable of and assassinate her girlfriend and her friends and everybody close to her and even worse  _ Himiko might be left alive to live with that loss and-- _

Alright! Enough thinking about that. Those thoughts just make her curl in on herself and want to hide, which is not good! Those thoughts bring across emotions that are complicated and complex, feelings that she just couldn’t understand. Or find the energy to understand.

But there’s always that feeling of hopelessness that lingers in the back of her mind. Powerlessness that accelerates the beat of her heart and seeps down from the top of her head to her fingertips. It’s terrifying to be in such a horrible position, so weak. In a position of such unawareness, of such little information. Other people had that power. Other people had the choice, had the ability to take people’s lives into their hands without worrying about their own.

Himiko felt so... helpless. All she could do was wait. And pray, maybe. 

“Bad,” She whispers under her breath, feet shuffling against the carpet until she gets to her closet. “Stop thinking… bad things.”

A great idea. The same great idea she attempts to hammer into her skull as she scavenges through her closet. This intense desire to forget all of these nasty feelings stays with her as she pulls on her skirt and white t-shirt, as she tightens her black Mary Jane’s over her socks. Himiko brushes her tangled hair, yanks through the knots until clumps of it start to get caught in her hairbrush, avoiding eye contact with the mirror. A bit of concealer and some sloppy mascara application later, the redhead sets out for the day.

Having breakfast was useless, considering it was 10:30 AM, now. She wasn’t hungry, either. The next best thing she could do was send Korekiyo a quick text and see what he was up to. Which, in itself, also made Himiko feel bad. 

As she walks towards their designated vent, she quickly glances at her phone. Korekiyo had sent her a message at 9:53 AM exactly, a solemn,  **‘Are you awake?’** He did not follow up after she failed to reply. She sends back an emotionless,  **‘yeah’** as she enters the elevator. 

Himiko arrives at the vent a few minutes later, her legs feeling shaky and her body relatively numb despite her brain telling her to keep moving. The grate has been placed over it, but if the redhead were to squint through the slits she’d be able to see a curled-up Korekiyo, scribbling into his notebook with that unreadable code of his. 

Himiko knocks against the grate, “Mornin’.”

“Ah. Good morning,” The taller teenager opens the grate like a door, his entire body hunched over. “Please, do come in.”

“Wow, the place looks nice. You’ve made revenations.”

“Renovations, yes. I thought I’d clean a few things before your arrival,” He awkwardly scoots to the side, letting Himiko occupy the space closest to the vent. The redhead shuts the grate behind them. “You certainly slept in for quite some time.”

Himiko titters under her breath, “Yeah… I was really tired, I, uh, guess.”

“I had assumed that your burst of energy from the previous morning would wear you out quite quickly.”

“Heehee. Yeah…” The redhead’s nose twitches as she sniffs, rubbing under it with her sleeve. “Um… a lot happened, huh.”

“...Yes. Quite a bit. It’s understandable you took the rest of the day off to process it,” Korekiyo says.

Himiko shrugs half-heartedly, “Not really. I kinda took a nap… And then… Kept sleeping…”

“...You slept for more than twenty hours?” Korekiyo deadpans.

“Well, no…! I woke up a bit ago, I just didn’t get out of bed…!” The redhead defends irresolutely, arms crossing in front of her. “...For a long time...”

Korekiyo hums in response, finishing the last of his scribbling before placing his journal gently down next to him. His hair has been tied very loosely back with a hairband, his eyes shifting towards the grate every few moments to check if anybody was approaching while he wasn’t looking. It seems both of them have been much more aware of their surroundings, much more vigilant of who could possibly be watching them. Both Tenko and Angie are at least aware that they had been talking to each other, and it could be seconds before either of them appear and demand to know what they’re doing. They’re sitting in a  _ vent, _ for Pete’s sake. There isn’t anywhere to run to. Himiko would either have to climb over Korekiyo (not good) or run directly out of the vent and towards whoever found her (which, if you haven’t guessed, is also not good).

The tension of it all falls upon her shoulders, rides up her spine uncomfortably. She finds herself sitting much more upright than usual, neck still stiff and jaw still set.

“Plans?” She asks bluntly. 

Since everything they’ve been searching for, concerning Junko and everything, seems to have been scrapped, there wasn’t a whole ton they could do. Unless both of them suddenly grew immense courage to challenge this woman who might very,  _ very _ possibly be the mastermind. Korekiyo was only throwing himself in danger by doing that, but Himiko was throwing herself  _ and _ all of her friends in danger, as well. The time limit was terrifying, and finding out who is behind all of this might be one of the only ways to get out of here before the limit expires, but it was too much of a risk. Too great of a danger for Himiko to try.

Unless either of them could figure out every secret about this hotel in the span of a day, accomplishing a feat so great that hundreds of adults with Ultimate Talents could not achieve, the only thing Himiko and Korekiyo could do was take defense. Offense is no longer on the table. Not on Day Four.

Korekiyo understands that all too well, “I’ve spent quite a bit of this morning looking for hiding spots. Places that will hopefully keep people hidden from danger. I’ve mentioned a few of them to our class during breakfast, but I’m unsure if everybody heard me…”

“You think hiding is the best option?” Himiko asks, genuinely curious. “If they don’t choose forty people, it’s sort of… Up to the hotel who dies, you know? There are guards and those camera-gun-thingies. I dunno know if hiding will really help.”

“I was more concerned about other participants than I was the time limit’s consequences, to be entirely honest. It’s human nature for those more assertive to learn from the mistakes of the last task and correct them, and I have every right to believe they will be choosing forty people to sacrifice this time around. Especially as the time limit draws nearer; People will be growing desperate,” He’s avoiding eye contact with Himiko entirely, gaze locked on the notebook down next to him. “It draws many moral dilemmas, this situation. But from where I stand, and from where I assume the majority also stands, killing forty people is more ethical than letting eighty die.”

“...It’s the trolley problem,” Himiko mutters, a sharp chill beginning to sprout in her chest and cause her to shake. “Interfere and kill some, or don’t interfere and kill more.”

Korekiyo nods curtly, “Precisely. I can only assume they will interfere and select forty instead of eighty.”

“That sounds…” The redhead’s words falter. Her shiver reaches her hands, and she quickly crosses her arms again to hide them. “Reasonable…”

“Who knows? I could be wrong, and the majority instead wish to let eighty people die at the hotel’s hand. Perhaps they believe in letting fate carry out as it is meant to. I’ll never be able to tell unless I analyze every individual in this convention,” Korekiyo’s gaze grows distant. “Truly remarkable, how different human beings can be. Our lives are in their hands, making the future incredibly unclear.”

“...You’re freaking me out, a little,” Himiko admits, knees tucked underneath her chin.

Korekiyo looks over at his trembling partner. There’s a beat that passes before his expression very slightly shifts, his eyes widening subtly.

“Apologies,” He says quietly, adjusting his body uncomfortably. “I find the subject manner interesting. Where were we?”

“D-Do you think hiding is… the only option? Are you scared something might happen to us…?”

Korekiyo’s eyes shift around the vents as he thinks of a reasonable answer, before remembering who he was with and quickly assuring Himiko with a rushed, “You will be fine. Unless the forty participants are being chosen by pure chance, I sincerely doubt you are on anybody’s radar. For multiple reasons. And even if it was luck-based, the chances of you being chosen are still incredibly slim.”

“...And you?” Himiko continues after a pause.

The former anthropologist noticeably hesitates. There was an answer, he  _ knew _ this answer, but the delivery seemed to be the real struggle at hand. 

“I will admit that I’m worried,” Is the sentence he settles on, head bobbing up and down. “The task was to eliminate ‘traitors’, and with no real knowledge of who those ‘traitors’ might be, people may choose the forty sacrifices based on suspicion. And considering my…” His voice fades for a moment. Himiko could barely see his face behind his mask, but was just able to detect the corners of his eyes crinkling in disdain. “...  _ Unattractive  _ past, I’d say it’s a little likely that…”

The sentence drifts, but he doesn’t have to finish for Himiko to understand his concern. Anybody in the hotel could have watched the last season and recognized that Korekiyo was a less than sympathetic character, somebody unstable and malicious. Being the last season to air and some of the last people out of the simulator, it’s quite possible that many still view Korekiyo as unstable. Dangerous. The redhead knew of two people (cough, Tenko and Angie, cough) that are already incredibly off-put by the former anthropologist. Her entire class, no matter how polite they tried to be, still visibly tense whenever Korekiyo entered the room unannounced. 

And Himiko would be lying if she said she felt completely,  _ completely  _ safe around him. They’ve grown closer, definitely-- that was, as much as she hides it, a fact that was undeniably true. Kokichi once mentioned how bonds were often formed much quicker when both people endure the same traumatic experience, and Himiko will definitely be able to label this experience as “traumatic” by all means. It explains the pair’s loyalty to each other; whether it was temporary or not is a question for after this convention. 

But there are things Korekiyo did that she won’t be able to look past. Things Tenko can’t look past. Or  _ Angie. _ It was prewritten for the former anthropologist to be that way-- that fact was also true-- but it doesn’t dismiss any memories or invalidate any feelings. And it was much too late,  _ much _ too late, for him to suddenly create long-lasting impressions and gain back the trust of every participant in the building, especially after the  _ horrendous _ first impression called Season 53.

So, yes. He was very suspicious, indeed. It makes Himiko feel even worse than before. The redhead was terrified of what will happen tonight, but she could only imagine how Korekiyo was feeling. 

Himiko absentmindedly draws circles on the vent floor with her fingers, “I dunno… There’s gotta be other people here that are worse than you, right? Um… Aren’t they looking for AHL members, or something?”

“Yes. Unfortunately for me, people here are very talented at lying.”

“How can you tell somebody’s a liar?” The redhead asks, nose twitching again. “I mean, assuming their pants aren’t on fire.”

Korekiyo opens his mouth to speak, closes it, before opening it again, “It’s complicated, for sure.”

Himiko releases a noise of consent from the back of her throat, signaling that this path of conversation was getting nowhere. Now that she thinks about it, she can’t exactly think of forty people off of the top of her head that would be considered suspicious based solely off of their actions in this hotel. Everything that seems “suspicious” to her were simple grudges or minor inconveniences, like Miu acting all strange or Tenko disappearing that one time. Or Junko Enoshima hiding her entire identity and resorting to (empty?) threats to manipulate people into doing her bidding. That’s like…. Three people. Three is a lot less than forty, Himiko thinks.

However, if the redhead based her selection off of people’s actions inside of the  _ simulator, _ Himiko would have a list of forty people in no time. There’s a double killer from every season. There was a serial killer from the first season who’s slaughtered countless men, a trope that seemed a little familiar, if slightly flipped. There are maybe six seasons where a participant got away with a murder and killed the rest of their class. Those “Warriors of Hope'' kids massacred hundreds of adults. Maki was a freaking assassin, even if her nametag still says “Ultimate Caregiver''.  _ Junko Enoshima. _

Korekiyo… might be up there with them. Not as bad as Enoshima, of course, but still up there. Definitely worrying for him.

But all of them must be like Korekiyo, right? Just… people who got stuck with horrible backstories and personalities by a company who craves entertainment above all? In that case, it wasn’t fair to choose based on actions in the simulator. But if  _ that _ was the case, who do they choose? Ugh, it was all too confusing! Four days ago, the most confusing thing Himiko had to worry about was the all-English instruction manual for this new build-it-yourself desk she had ordered.

“I don’t think you’re… the  _ worst _ person here,” The redhead tries to console, face contorting uncertainly. 

Korekiyo’s eyebrow raises as he whispers a barely audible, “I’d hardly call myself the best, either.”

“I mean, if you really were all that bad, you would’ve killed me already. Right?” The redhead says, trying to crack a joke but coming off a bit too blunt.

The former anthropologist stiffens greatly, “...Okay.”

“Right. Well, if you hide well enough, it should be okay…” The former mage replies shakily. She pulls down her sleeves before looking upwards at him with a crooked smile. “I’ll use my cloaking magic to make you invisible. It’s impossible to detect.”

“Appreciated,” Korekiyo nods. “I’ll be in these vents once the clock strikes 10 PM, and will wait here until the time limit expires. You are welcome to hide here, if necessary.”

“...Can I bring others?” Himiko requests timidly.

“I’m… not opposed,” The former anthropologist answers slowly. “However, if this is Tenko or Angie you are talking about, please do be aware that they might not want to spend more than two minutes near me--”

“Oh! That’s right! That’s what I was forgetting!” The redhead announces. The brief moment of pride she had accumulated through remembering what she should say quickly dulls as she fully recalls just what she had forgotten. “Um… Angie still wants to talk. Well, the note said she wants to talk to me, but--”

“You could only assume it meant with  _ all _ of us. Yes.”

Himiko didn’t have to be incredible at reading emotions to recognize that Korekiyo seemed disgruntled at the thought, “... I mean… they didn’t take it  _ too _ terribly, yesterday…”

“No, they did not. But I am certain if your girlfriend saw us crouching in the vents like animals and conspiring together, she would have a few choice words to say to me.”

“...You mean she’d punch you, right--”

“She would absolutely, yes.”

The redhead winces, but couldn’t help but let a tiny, somewhat tense giggle slip. They could all remember very vividly the last time Korekiyo and Tenko had interacted one-on-one, which did not end up going too well for one of the parties (Korekiyo). Tenko was a very emotional person, and if she’s angry enough to deck somebody across the face you usually won’t be able to convince her otherwise. Maybe it was inevitable at this point. Maybe Tenko just needed to get that slap out of her system before they could move forward rationally. 

Himiko can’t stop thinking about how mad she’s going to be. How betrayed.

“Nngh,” She groans into her knees, exhaling deeply. “What do we do?”

“I’m not sure,” Korekiyo replies tiredly. “I was never the one in charge.”

“And you’re saying  _ I _ am? I’m making everything up as I go along…” The former mage mumbles, before pausing. Obviously she needs to think of  _ something, _ “I think it’s too late to do any more investigating. I...I think we just need to be… prepared. For tonight. And if--  _ when _ we survive, we’ll… go from there.”

Korekiyo very subtly shifts at her stumble on the words “if” and “when”, knowing that the distinction was much less clear for him, “That sounds alright.”

Himiko stares at the former anthropologist, but he does not return the eye contact. He seems distracted.

“When,” Himiko clarifies once more.

Korekiyo turns back towards the smaller teen, eyes narrowing almost sarcastically,  _ “If.” _

“Hey…” Himiko scorns, pointing a mockingly parental finger in his direction. 

The former anthropologist exhales through his nose, in what Himiko could only guess was bitter amusement. He turns back to his journal and begins to open it once more as the redhead turns to exit, having finished this conversation. Himiko manages to catch a glimpse of the pages as she nears the grate. His writing looks much more frantic, the code bold and jagged. Almost as if the sentences he was writing were growing louder, much more deafening and clamorous. With the time limit approaching, it made a lot of sense to be this terrified.

They were both so tiny compared to the corporation that ran this place. Compared to the enforcement team and Future Foundation and Danganronpa. They were just kids. They had every right be terrified.

“Will I see you here, again?” Korekiyo asks as Himiko begins to head out the door.

The redhead turns, quirking an eyebrow, “...Maybe, why?”

“I was only wondering if I should say my goodbyes. However, if you plan on hiding here tonight, I’ll see you later.”

“Always so morbid…” Himiko tries to joke, but it falls flat. “I’ll see you later, then.”

“Take care,” Korekiyo nods in her direction, resuming the writing in his journal. He keeps pausing every few seconds. It’s almost like he’s having a conversation with his notebook.

He’s very intensely silent as Himiko leaves. They both are. 

-=+=-

“I say we all just  _ find a room  _ and  _ stay there,” _ Kaito suggests firmly, voice lowered so the other occupants in the dining hall could not hear them. “The less visible, the better! Right?”

“How heroic of you, Kaito!” Kokichi chirps, shoving his lunch into his mouth and sending food flying. “Hiding like a little baby!”

“I am not a baby!!” The former astronaut disagrees, suddenly louder. 

The class waves him to be quiet, shushing him as secretly as they can. Kaito sputters, trying to defend himself against Kokichi’s accusation, but eventually relents and falls back into his chair with a huff. 

The majority of Himiko’s class, minus a few exceptions, had gathered promptly at lunchtime for an official Season 53 meeting, called by none other than their protagonist, Shuichi. He began the meeting with that semi-awkward, semi-authoritative demeanor of his, calling for action in the middle of a busy dining hall. There were only three people from their class that were missing: Korekiyo, who was presumably still in hiding; Miu, who was presumably still with that enforcement team of hers; and Kaede, who was… somewhere? 

Shuichi had wanted to hold this meeting at breakfast, but apparently much of the class had not been present. Himiko recognizes that that included her and blushed, sinking guiltily in her chair. It was just like her to sleep through an important meeting.

The former detective sighs at the general antics, still standing above the table as they continue to banter tirelessly with each other. He’s overthinking again, carefully constructing what he’s about to say next while the rest of the class stays distracted. 

“U-Um, guys?” He tries at first. The season begins to finish their conversations, still talking. “Um…”

“Guys. Hey!” Kaito booms, as if he wasn’t the one making the most noise. “Remember what Maki said, we’ve gotta work together right now!”

“I-I’m sorry? When did Maki say—?”

“So let’s all pay attention, yeah?” Kaito gestures at Shuichi grandly, waving him to continue. “Take it away, sidekick!”

The former detective titters. ‘Sidekick’ was more of an inside joke than it was an actual nickname, now. They all knew who the real sidekick was, “Right. Well, I think we’ve all decided that staying in a hotel room—“ Kokichi puts his hand up. “ _ Together,  _ Kokichi—“ Kokichi puts his hand down. “Is the best way to move forward. I’ll let Kaede know. She must still be at her rehearsal…”

“Oh! What did you two talk about yesterday when Kaede ran away? W-Was she upset with us?” Tenko asks worriedly, hands jittering on her lap. 

“No, not really. She was just tired, Tenko.”

The former aikido master lets out a tiny sigh. Himiko turns over and gives her a smile as she squeezes her hand, which is returned immediately. Thank god they had more to worry about than Korekiyo, right now. That conversation was for later. Much,  _ much  _ later, preferably. Maybe never. 

“She’ll be happy to know we’ve agreed on  _ this, _ at least,” Kirumi hums, mostly to herself.

“Exactly, Kirumi."

“You’re all free to hide in our hotel room,” Ryoma offers, gesturing between himself and Gonta. He did not have to ask the former entomologist for Gonta to welcome his class into their refuge with open arms. “Feels like we’ve been swapping through everybody’s rooms.”

Angie’s face contorts from her neutral smile for a brief moment, before she quickly clears her throat and asks, “Shuichi…? I don’t mean to be rude, but… is  _ Miu _ coming, as well?”

The former detective pauses. His gaze flickers to the door, searching for Kaede in case she struts in and catches him about to diss her friend. Shuichi’s eyes then glances over at Kokichi, whose face was scrunching comically, like he had just eaten an entire lemon.

“No,” The former detective decides. His voice wavers in a way that tells the entire class he wasn’t certain of this decision. “No, she has… the enforcement team, right? She’ll be fine. I-I’ll talk to Kaede.”

Himiko turns over to the enforcement team’s table, which was entirely empty. Desolate. The silence that comes from the opposite side of the room sends a shiver down the redhead’s spine, a heavy feeling beginning to bubble deep in her stomach. They’re eating somewhere else, apparently, somewhere much more secluded and secretive. God. They knew so much more than Himiko did. Had so much more power. To think that all Miu had to do was be in the right place at the right time…

“I say we meet at 10 PM,” Shuichi suggests. The class all nod in his direction, agreeing that meeting up again was the smartest thing they could do. It’s not like any of them were busy. “We’ll stay in Ryoma and Gonta’s room overnight.”

“Sleepover!!!” Kokichi sings.

“Yay…” The class groans in response.

“Is the meeting all wrapped up, Shuichi-boy?” The former supreme leader asks with faux politeness. He brushes his hands against his shorts as he rises. “I’m gonna bother Miu some more, because I am annoying like that.”

“Seriously. Stop it,” Maki orders. “No more talking to Miu.”

“B-But why…? Why would you keep us apart like this…?” Kokichi sobs. He throws his hands in Himiko's direction, causing the redhead to giggle in amusement. “You wouldn’t keep Tenko and Himiko apart, would you!?!?”

“10 PM,” Shuichi repeats to the class. “I’m gonna find Kaede.”

“Ooh! Ooh, I’ll come with!”

The former detective shrugs with an uneasy smile, waving Kokichi in his direction as he takes his phone and begins to exit. The class all began to talk over each other once again. Maybe they all felt just a bit more secure in what will happen tonight. Maybe there was a sense of unity beginning to form with her class, a loyalty being created despite a lot of them still being pretty awkward around each other. 10 PM, all of them will hide. Quite possibly for their lives. Without Miu.

Himiko needs to tell Korekiyo that, as well, or it might be without him, either. The vents did feel a  _ little _ bit more hidden, even if it was more crowded, but in a hotel room she had the luxury of other people and a bit more space. 

Plus, in a hotel room, she won’t have to worry about  _ that _ conversation. The conversation she does not want to have. Because if she’s sitting in a vent then Tenko will have to come along as well, because the redhead will absolutely not allow the brunette to disappear like she did last time and give her a heart attack. And if Tenko and Himiko are going in one direction, then Angie will follow, soon after. And if  _ Korekiyo _ is sitting in that vent with them… Yikes.

Himiko has music practice to attend to. That’s another two hours she can throw down the drain before she has to get serious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 35/40


	37. how much can you fit under your skin?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> look under your chair!!!!! YOU get a bad day, and YOU get a bad day, and YOU ge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> school's started for me again, so if these updates get a little slower just know that's why lol!! enjoy :D

This whole thing is STUPID and her class is STUPID and SHE is the BEST and everybody else is STUPID. Miu does NOT care about ANY of them. All of them can _CHOKE AND DIE._ If she could underline that thought,  _SHE FUCKING WOULD._

Miu goddamn Iruma has let this anger fester and bubble deep within her chest, this hot fury running through her skin and down her spine. The clothing that brushes against her skin irritates her to no end, every noise that even dares to sound off in her direction was suddenly the most annoying thing could possibly encounter. She’s angry. That’s all she can say about it. She’s just so fucking _angry._

It’s not even like this wasn’t expected, because it _was._ Miu knew that her class hated her, and she knew that this enforcement team position of her’s would land her in hot water with every former classmate she had. Because they hate it when Miu does anything for herself, or is too confident or too cocky or actually hangs around people who are amicable with her instead of a class who only somewhat tolerates her. It makes sense for them to feel uneasy around her when she’s a part of this armed group, she _gets_ that. She _understands_ that. Her classmates barely know who she is. Of course they’re gonna be a bunch of wussies and run away instead of confronting her about it.

But _Kaede?_

It’s a thought that makes Miu want to cry and scream at the same time. Kaede Akamatsu is this goody-two-shoes, always trying to be better type of gal who rescues kittens from trees and helps grandmas cross the street. Absolutely, over-compensatingly good. So good, in fact, that she actually tries to put up with Miu Iruma, sits with her at lunch and introduces Rantaro to her so they can grow closer, invites her out to do things when nobody else does. She might have a more snippy tone when Miu makes a joke that’s a bit too uncomfortable, but Kaede was always patient with the former inventor. Whenever they argued, they would always wake up the next morning and give each other a hug. A fight has never lasted this long. Been this damaging.

Miu has definitely stepped over the line to make _Kaede_ scared of her. And that thought angered her more than anything.

It really does confirm that she was a horrible person, huh? There really wasn’t much denying it from the beginning; The failed murder attempt, her overbearing personality, everything about her character… it all seemed very set for her to be less than perfect. One of the kindest people-- who barely even talks bad about _Korekiyo,_ for fuck’s sake-- is scared of Miu. Kaede has to be. She, and the rest of Miu’s class, all got together and talked about how Miu was crashing and burning and scary and awful. And they were all _right._

God. God fucking _damnit._ Kokichi was _right._ He’s been right about her all along.

So now all Miu can do is sit and mope. Throw a childish fit. Sit down in a chair and wait for this meeting to begin, arms folded tightly over her chest and face scrunched inwards so tightly it was starting to hurt her head. Her lips quiver with words she was choking back, eyes squinted intently at the theatre stage in front of her. God fucking _damn it._ She keeps doing this. She keeps pushing everybody away. Everything that is happening to her is happening because she’s a shitty idiot who hurts people’s feelings. 

She just feels so… lonely. And everything was beginning to feel very heavy. Like something weighted was sitting on her chest.

Mondo arrives at the Iris Ballroom about ten minutes after Miu does, head down and face hardened as he stares intently at this tiny notepad he was writing in. He’s clearly been up for a while now, dark bags growing much more prominent under his eyes, a scowl forming on his lips. He’s wearing the same shirt he was wearing yesterday. Lastly, and perhaps most disappointingly, his hair was no longer in that 1950s-esque toupee of his, meaning that Miu’s “funnel-head” nickname was no longer viable. This day was the fucking WORST.

Mondo barely looks up from the notepad, “You’re here early, ‘ruma.”

“Mhm,” She agrees, lips still sealed tightly shut.

With a robotic glance around her, she comes to notice that she’s one of the only people here. Miu has once again mindlessly wandered into this specific ballroom, her brain switching off entirely and her legs motoring directly into this theatre. There were a few other enforcement team members of various unnamed talents sitting throughout the theatre, taking seats on the other side of the ballroom. Taking refuge, probably, in an area no other participant was interested in entering.

“Meeting’s not ‘til twenty minutes,” Mondo says, eyes flickering upwards briefly.

“Got ‘ere early,” Miu grumbles under her breath, arms still crossed. “Obviously.”

The Ultimate Biker Gang Leader looks up at the snide comment, finger held over the page he was currently on, “Nothing else you could be doing?”

“W-Well, I--! I-I-I tried talking to Kaede, but all I did was…! She wouldn’t even…!” Miu tries to form words, but they all feel incoherent and stupid. With another heavy sigh, she throws her hands over her face and drags them downwards. “I was asking about AHL, like you _wanted,_ but she was being all dodgy and weird and--! _Uugh.”_

“Kaede…?” 

“Akamatsu.”

Mondo hums at the full name, writing something down in the back of his notepad. Miu did not catch it as she continued to drag her hands down her face.

“Gotcha,” The biker completes, finishing his scribbling and twirling the pencil in his hands. “So, you’re acting all pissy cuz you couldn’t get answers?”

“No! No, it--!”

“Is there _nothing else_ you can be doing right now? If you haven’t noticed, we’re sorta on a time limit here, kid.”

“You don’t think I know that!?” At her raised tone, Mondo squints. “B-But I’ll do something else, I-I’m not _totally_ useless!! This day has just… sucked _ass.”_

“I’ll drink to that,” The biker gang leader titters under his breath, before blinking at his own sentence. “But you will not. Because you are underage.”

“Oh, shut the hell up!” Miu groans loudly. “I get more bitches than you do.”

Mondo’s eyes narrow, lips curling into a scowl, “You _really_ just say fuckin’ _anything,_ huh.”

“H-Huh!? Y-Y-You’re swearing at me…!?” Miu whimpers, recoiling again. Her nose scrunches in disgust at the man in front of her. “In my moment of weakness--!!!”

“Alright, _listen,_ kid!” His very sudden change in volume nearly startles the former inventor out of her seat. “I’ve got too much on my goddamn plate to be dealing with that fucking attitude of yours! You’re not the only person here who’s had a shitty day, got it!?” He pauses for a very brief moment, as if Miu to nod or agree or say something. All she does is flinch backwards into her chair, eyes wide as they stare at him and prickling with tears. “Now _move your ass_ before--”

 _“I get it!”_ She chokes. Her bottom lip trembles very suddenly, a wave of emotion hitting her as she desperately attempts to choke it down. “I’m _going,_ old man! J-Jesus!”

Miu slams her feets onto the floor again, scrambling for the jacket she had thrown under her chair. Mondo exhales through his teeth as she finds the item of clothing. It’s clear that he, as well, has spoken much faster than his brain could filter. There was barely anything softening the blow, at this point.

Welp. Now that she’s been kicked out of the Iris Ballroom, the options seemed much more limited. There wasn’t any place that Miu would go to wallow in peace, especially not with Ultimate Therapists and Ultimate Psychologists-- any ass-kissers, really-- ready to pick apart her brain at any moment. And it’s not like she can go asking around for more information, because nobody likes her _or_ trusts her in this building. That, and she’s already bordering another fucking panic attack because god forbid she couldn’t find her medication this morning, so walking around just seemed like a terrible idea. Time to look for yet another place she can mope in. Her own hotel room was now unavailable, considering how she had just broken off with her _fucking roommate--_

“Listen,” Mondo sighs, now much softer. He pinches the bridge of his nose before continuing, tone seeping with regret. “You’re a kid… I shouldn’t have yelled--”

Miu sniffs, but does not stop adjusting the jacket over her shoulders, “I’m _not._ A-And I need to be doing stuff, anyways. You were-- _Right,_ I guess--” 

“Hey, _listen._ I’m only tellin’ you this cuz I had the same attitude, alright?” The biker admits. Miu stops in her tracks, eyes still glued to the floor. Her lips thin into a straight line. Thank god the other enforcement team members were too busy talking amongst themselves to look over in pity. “I didn’t mean to yell at ya. I haven’t been having a great day.”

“Y-Yeah, that’s what I’ve--” The former inventor pauses, wiping discreetly under her nose as she second-guesses her next sentence. “...Nobody has.”

A beat of silence passes between them. It’s almost awkward. Mondo clearly was not qualified to handle any of this emotional crap. 

“You gotta work with people without bein’ so difficult, alright?” The biker gang leader announces, tapping his notepad against Miu’s shoulder. She shoves him off, but there’s barely any ill-intent. “There are people lookin’ out for you, but not if you keep pushin’ ‘em around. And… you know what? If you don’t have to be at this meeting, I have something for you to do. You up for it?”

Miu recollects herself with an inhale, rolling her shoulder back at the chance for something to do, “U-Uh, yeah. What?”

“Here,” He hands over the small notepad, its black cover now flipped over the pages. “Hand this to Makoto for me, would ya? He’s down in the basement.”

“O-Okay… What is it--?” Miu tries to ask, moving to open the notepad.

“Don’t read it,” Mondo orders firmly, snapping the cover closed. “Top secret, kid. Not for you. Plus, it’s only a rough draft.”

“W-Well, now I _have_ to read it!! You just gave me super secret information!!! What, do you expect me to _not_ read it as soon as I turn the corner, dumbass??”

Mondo opens his mouth to retaliate, hard, but snaps his mouth shut so roughly that his teeth click together. Miu’s eyes drill holes into his own, mouth scrunching inwards. Her anxious tapping against the notepad’s cover was barely hidden by her low looks.

Mondo, almost knowingly, exhales through his nose. With a quick double check of who was around him, he begins to speak again, this time under his breath. His lips barely move.

“You’re not on there,” He confirms.

It diminishes a fear that Miu was barely aware she had. _You’re not on there._ Neither of them had to ask what exactly he meant by that-- they both knew well enough that there was a list of people in that notepad. A list of people that were about to have even shittier days than both Mondo and Miu combined.

She wants to say something back to him. A _‘thank you’,_ perhaps, even though she knows he wasn’t the sole contributor to this list. This was a compilation of people created by a whole team of participants, participants who spent hours upon hours butting heads and making extremely tough decisions concerning life and death. She had not only Mondo to thank, but anybody he was deliberating with. Anybody who had thrown in another name that wasn’t Miu’s, anybody who had condemned another person to die that wasn’t the former inventor.

She had thirty-five people to thank. Thirty-five people that _weren’t her._

And even then, those thirty-five people were still unconfirmed. Maybe all it took to actually confirm them was Miu taking this list to Makoto. Maybe all she had to do was hand this notepad over to the Ultimate Hope to seal all of their fates.

And she was still going to do it. Doubt barely crossed the former inventor’s mind. The notepad has been passed to her, and she was going to give it to Makoto. 

More people start to enter as the enforcement team meeting draws nearer, leading the room to suddenly grow much more crowded and noisy. It was better to leave, Miu reckons. The walk could do her some good. Kaede always recommended taking a walk whenever she got in her head too much, which was considerably often. That advice would be so much better if it didn’t pain Miu’s heart whenever she thought about Kaede, at the moment.

An order was an order, and Miu had something she had to do, now. Useful once more. At least she’s got something going for her, even if that meant being a glorified assistant for the time being.

“I gotta ask,” She states as she nears the door. She holds the notepad tightly in her right hand.

Mondo, who was probably mapping out what he was about to tell everybody, turns to look at her. His face was still hardened, but he tried his best to come off as gentle, “Yeah? Go for it.”

“Why am I still on this team?” Miu asks. “You’re not giving me a gun, and it turns out all my work has been for _balls.”_

Mondo’s eyes narrow, almost as if he was confused at the implication, “You’re still a team member, Iruma. We want you ‘round.”

There’s something about that sentence that makes Miu feel a little lighter. ‘We want you around’. So simple, yet it was all Miu really needed to hear right now. Finally, she was part of a team.

“Get back to me once you’ve delivered it,” Mondo continues, as if he hadn’t just said the nicest thing Miu had heard all day.

“Okay,” Miu says, as if she wasn’t about to burst into spontaneous tears. “Thanks, Mondo.”

“‘Course. Sorry for yelling at you.”

“I-It’s whatever. Could’ve been worse.”

Mondo snickers abruptly, laughing at a joke that Miu didn’t understand, “Guess it could’ve.”

The strawberry blonde squints at him one last time, before stumbling around the corner. Her legs still feel shaky, but at least there’s a bit of power in her stride. Confidence that others don’t have. 

The Ultimate Biker Gang Leader’s slight grin immediately falls as soon as the former inventor leaves. There was much he had to discuss with the adults.

-=+=-

Not opening the notepad was one of the hardest things Miu has had to do in a _while._

The trip down in the elevator was hauntingly silent, the rattle of the room shaking her even further as she descended. Everything was much too quiet for her liking. Without any kind of distraction, the urge to open the notepad and read it grew increasingly stronger. 

Maybe she should just take a peek. It’s not like she’s going to hurt anybody doing that, right? Miu just wants to double check, see if she’s on there. She could also check if anybody else she knows is on there, even though she cares more about the former. It would be so easy-- she just has to open the damn thing, skim over it, and close it before the elevator door opens. And it’s not like she’s some _saint,_ either. She’s done much worse today, already. Might as well continue with this streak. 

Miu flicks open the notepad and rapidly reads through the first page. Her eyes move much too quickly and she finds herself having to read over it twice before any of the names stuck. Nobody she recognized. Not one person she knew. There were a few people she’s _heard_ of, but it’s not like Miu was the greatest judge of character. They were probably on this list for a reason. The Ultimate Dentist from Season 36 probably did some wacky shit to land himself in this group. Maybe the Ultimate Gamer from Season 2 was super evil. It’s not like Miu would ever be able to tell.

The names in the front of the notepad only spur the former inventor to read more. She’s just about to jump forward and flip to the back when the elevator suddenly dings open.

Kokichi Ouma stands on the other side. He doesn’t hesitate this time. The former supreme leader practically leaps into the elevator with her.

“Afternoon!” He greets with a toothy grin. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

Miu stiffens immediately, snapping the notepad closed with a nasty click. There was something keeping her mouth closed, something gritting her teeth together and coiling knots in her stomach. She just wasn’t having it today. She’s argued enough, already. And it’s all Kokichi wanted, anyways: a reaction. Miu was in a position where she doesn’t _need_ to give a reaction.

The former inventor doesn’t answer.

Kokichi definitely notices, “Say, where’s Kaede?”

Kaede was probably still in that office. Maybe the former pianist was just as angry as Miu had been, pacing around the room and grumbling under her breath. Or maybe the blonde had left to find Shuichi, left to find friends who were better at consoling her than Miu was, left to rant to the former detective or Rantaro or _anybody,_ really, because everybody likes her. Or maybe Kaede was still there. Just standing. 

Miu doesn’t have to answer Kokichi’s question, so she doesn’t. 

The former supreme leader huffs subtly, turning back towards the elevator doors. Something very slight falls in his expression, a blank look of disappointment. Boredom, even, from the lack of response. Usually Miu was one to make things interesting for him.

Kokichi’s eyes scan the small elevator the two of them were in. He rocks back and forth between his heels and the balls of his feet, lightly rocking the cube they stood in, analyzing anything that might be out of place. His gaze quickly falls upon the black notepad clenched in Miu’s hands. The former inventor braces herself for what he was about to ask. They were _so close_ to reaching the ground floor.

“What’s that?” He pesters. Miu rolls her eyes. “Hey! Hey! What’s that?”

He moves to swipe at it, but the former inventor harshly yanks it away from him, “None of your business.”

“Awwww. I didn’t _appreciate_ that.” 

Miu nearly responds, but quickly closes her mouth before she takes this conversation any further. She just had to give this to Makoto. She _just_ had to give this to Makoto.

Kokichi sighs, but way too over-dramatically and extended for anybody’s comfort. The deep exhale continues all the way down to the parking garage, to Miu’s great annoyance.

The walk through the garage was as tense and silent as it could get. Kokichi had eyes on the black notepad in Miu’s hands, oggling at it with great intent, as if he was waiting for the perfect moment to reach out and snatch it from the former inventor’s hands. Miu was almost entirely convinced that was the only purpose he had coming here, considering there wasn’t much that Kokichi Ouma could do down here besides badger Makoto Naegi mercilessly. Then again, the last time the two of them had come down here, Kokichi managed to wiggle his way into the basement, anyways. But things were much different, then, and Miu can’t imagine he’ll be let in, now.

Hiro and his crew were gone. They were no longer sitting in the corner of the garage, no longer emitting laughter that sent echoes bouncing off of the walls. Miu was completely, utterly isolated with Kokichi. And for some reason, she doesn’t feel as unnerved. If anything, it was Kokichi who was feeling out-of-character, with his hollow expressions and total lack of dialogue.

They approach the basement door with just as much silence. Miu goes to knock on the door, but Kokichi raises his hands in protest. He wants her to listen.

“I’m not sure I can even look at you, right now. You’ve escaped _how many_ killing games only to do _this--”_

“I find it _ridiculous,_ Makoto, that you’re even _considering_ this as an option--”

“I-It really is the only-- We’ve _tried_ everything else, we’ve tried--”

Three people were arguing, loudly. Their voices weren’t emotional in tone, but still held an intense volume that made their heated discussion audible to anybody who might be approaching.

“Have you?” It’s Kyoko Kirigiri, voice unusually raised and pointed. There’s a familiar coldness mixed with the abrupt fierceness that seeps through her tone. “It isn’t like you to give up this easily.”

“I-I’m not giving up,” Makoto asserts back. In comparison to his girlfriend’s, his voice was pitifully timid. “This isn’t _giving up,_ this is _doing what’s best--”_

Somebody scoffs. It’s familiar. Must be Byakuya, “What’s best? _What’s best?”_

“I can’t _believe_ that you’d organize this without our knowledge. Without _my_ knowledge. You should know better than anybody that this method of survival is _vile.”_

“Kyoko--”

The door swings open with such ferocity that it causes both teenagers to recoil backwards, a brief wind rustling through the Ultimate Detective’s hair. Kyoko freezes at the sight of the two of them very subtly, an almost bewildered expression creeping through her eyes as the rest of her seeps with a look of betrayal. Makoto has pushed himself off of the desk he was leaning against, extending a hand to stop her, but also stops when he notices Miu standing there. 

Kyoko let’s the shock dissolve quickly, stepping forward once more to storm off. If Miu squinted, she might just be able to catch an out-of-character glassiness covering her eyes.

Makoto grabs the door before the detective is able to slam it, “Kyoko, wait--!”

“I’m so sorry,” Kyoko returns. 

It isn’t for Makoto. In fact, if anything, it was mostly aimed towards the floor. The vague apology was thrown at Miu and Kokichi as she marched past, head down, the clicking of her shoes bouncing through the silent garage.

Makoto watches as she exits, knowing there was no use running after her. His appearance has once again seemingly deteriorated overnight, his once-pressed white-collar shirt wrinkled and his tie just barely even around his neck. There is no smile visible in his distraught expression, nothing bright and sunny about him to commercialize. Byakuya leans against a desk on the left, arms crossed and face hardened at the floor.

Makoto notices Miu and Kokichi after a beat, shaking himself back into character. With a weak yet warm smile, the Ultimate Hope asks, “Can I help you guys?”

Kokichi whistles in astonishment at the argument, scratching his head in pretend awkwardness. Miu has the violent urge to punch him in the shoulder.

“What was that about?” The former inventor has to ask. It comes off a bit more rude than intended.

“O-Oh, we were just… um--”

“Nothing that should concern you,” Byakuya interrupts firmly, striding forward to tower behind Makoto. His arms remain crossed over his chest and his expression barely shifts from mildly inconvenienced to incredibly displeased. “What are you doing here?”

“Woah! Byakuya, hey! It’s me, Kokichi Ouma, remember?” The former supreme leader greets with exuberant waves. The Ultimate Affluent Progeny does not flinch. “I was just here to say hello to my good friend Miu, because, if I may speak my truth, she seems--”

“This is from Mondo,” Miu interjects robotically, passing the black notepad to the Ultimate Hope.

“Oh, thank you, um--”

Before Makoto has the chance to stash the list, Byakuya sharply snatches the object out of his hands. Kokichi’s smile falls as soon as he realizes the attention has been diverted from him, once again staring intently at the notepad, waiting for the affluent progeny to accidentally flip over a page. Drop the book, even. Anything that would reveal the contents of the notepad Miu was trying so coldly to hide from him. Miu only watches him glance over it, aware of what was contained in that notepad, knowing full well that the former supreme leader _must_ have a clue about what is happening by now. Surely Kokichi Ouma has picked up that Plan B is going to happen, now. Surely he was smart enough.

Byakuya quickly flips over the cover, his blue eyes scanning over the first page. The first few names were all he had to read to suddenly grow cold again, shoving the notepad against Makoto’s chest in return before he turned and marched in the opposite direction, further into the basement. Makoto does nothing but watch. Miu can’t help but feel she’s intruding.

“Mondo said to give it to you now,” Miu lies, attempting to push the blame off of her herself. In reality, the order hadn’t been so incredibly urgent, moreso a command to get Miu out and on her feet again. 

“No, no, that’s…” Makoto falters with his words. His tired eyes flicker upwards at the direction Kyoko had gone in, and his voice warbles almost unnoticeably. “Fine. It’s all good, um… Anything else I can do?”

“No,” Miu answers with little hesitance. There was nothing that Makoto _himself_ could do, anyways. 

“Great. Kokichi…?”

Miu looks over at the former supreme leader, only to find him returning the eye contact, staring at her much longer than she had been staring at him. There is nothing behind his expression anymore, besides a lingering look of knowledge. There’s a familiar glint in his eyes, almost as if he has figured out Miu entirely. As if he knew and understood everything that made Miu Iruma tick, what she and her whole enforcement team was planning.

“Nope! Not anymore,” Kokichi finally answers, turning to meet the Ultimate Hope. “It’s all unfixable now. I’ll see you later, Mr. Naegi!”

He skips off with a childish hum. Miu is left standing in front of the Ultimate Hope awkwardly.

Makoto, concerned about his last statement, hollers a weak, “Be safe, Kokichi!”

Miu doesn’t have to turn around to know that Kokichi ignored him entirely. She pushes the conversation forwards, anyways, “How long have you been down here?”

“Oh-- Me? Um…” He wipes under his nose, trying to hide the motion as a scratch. He attempts to come up with a specific answer, but only ends up blowing wind out of his mouth and shrugging. “N-Not too sure, haha. A while, I guess. Lots of, um, talking.”

“I heard,” The former inventor grimaces.

“Yeah… I’m, uh, sorry you had to hear that. Everybody is just stressed, it’s been a--”

“Bad day. I get it,” Miu interjects almost jokingly, lightening at the reminder of her conversation with Mondo. “We’ve all been fuckin’ having one.”

While he does wince slightly, the Ultimate Hope allows that train of thought to fade away and dissolve. Both of them knew exactly how the rest of this day was about to go, yet neither of them were willing to start that line of conversation. Neither of them wanted to acknowledge the elephant in the room, the list of people that Miu had just handed off to Makoto, the group of participants that have basically just been condemned to die. Both of them stand in silence, letting a beat pass as Makoto inhales and exhales shakily. He’s trying not to cry. Miu _should_ be crying-- at the people whose lives will undoubtedly be sacrificed soon, at the friendship she had just lost for her own personal safety-- but all of her tears had dried as soon as she entered the garage.

“I’ll leave you alone,” She mutters. It’s half for his own sake and half because this conversation was leading them nowhere.

“Right. Stay safe, Miu.”

“I will,” She says. It’s not a promise, but rather an accurate telling. She _will_ be safe. It’s just a fact.

The former inventor nods in place of a wave, turning towards the elevator empty-handed. Makoto closes the door behind her very gently. With as little power as possible.

There was a noise that came from behind her that caused Miu to flip around and check. It was so muffled, coming from behind that door, and it ended as soon as it started, like somebody had flicked a switch on and off. Either Makoto dropped the notepad he was holding, or he just let out a sob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 35/40


	38. bow down before the one you serve (you’re gonna get what you deserve)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a poolside chat and hiding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for very slight comment about suicide

She’s just… sitting there. Junko Enoshima is just sitting there.

Himiko has been loitering rather awkwardly at the doorway, watching the girl hesitantly from afar. 9:00 PM meant that the courtyard was almost entirely abandoned, the night sky overhead as the yellow pool lights illuminate the surrounding area. Junko was sitting with her pants rolled up, her feet dipped into the pool. She was tapping away at a laptop that rests on her lap, awfully close to the water in front of her. One sudden jolt and her technology would go flying into the pool.

Considering the time limit was only two hours away, the “Ultimate Chess Player” was being awfully casual. And Himiko found it appalling. 

The redhead had stumbled upon her on her way to Ryoma’s hotel room. She had just returned from notifying Korekiyo, who was still curled up in that vent, about their class’s plan to drop everything and hide. He had been more than reluctant to join the crowded class, having cited the last time everybody was locked in a hotel room as a viable excuse as to why it wasn’t a good idea. Himiko didn’t push too hard. If he felt safer there, he felt safer there. Not much she could say otherwise.

Himiko reckoned that getting to Ryoma and Gonta’s room early would help quell this rising anxiety of hers, this jitteriness she feels whenever she’s open in the halls. It was a feeling that was mutual between every participant she has passed this far, this general sentiment of pure dread of what was to come. Everybody knew it was one or the other: forty or eighty people killed. It seems that all of them have already given up hope on finding escape before the two hour period reaches its end, especially with their “Ultimate Hope” nowhere to be found. People glared at each other as they passed, tensing as they walked by others, once again experiencing the familiar sensation of distrusting one another. An experience they should have left behind years ago. 

Finding Junko so out in the open like this was a rather jarring juxtaposition. She sat, feet in the pool, playing on her laptop without any concern for how unshielded she was. Himiko wanted to do something, at least part of her did, anyways, but her feet remained planted near the exit. What _would_ she do, anyways? Confront her? Ask her what her deal was? Who would be intimidated by this 4”11 redhead?

It’s the same old thing with Himiko, time and time again. She needs to _do_ something, but she just can’t _decide._ And when she does end up deciding, usually abruptly due to a sudden burst of energy, it all seems to backfire in her face. Or other people’s faces. Or everybody’s face, simultaneously. 

So Himiko will stand and let a few minutes blow past, waiting for some part of her brain to connect the pieces and decide on what she should next, waiting for a decision to be--

“Are you gonna come talk to me? Quit standing there,” Junko calls out, still faced towards her laptop. It was almost like she wasn’t talking to Himiko at all, even though the statement could have only been directed at the redhead. “You look like a total perv.”

Himiko’s entire face immediately flushes. She spins around, almost double-checking if there was anybody else the fashionista could be talking to. But, of course, there was nobody. Himiko got caught. Again. 

“S-Sorry! I-I-I spaced out!” She chokes, words warbling and barely audible. After gargling that pathetic attempt at an excuse, she can’t help but slam the heel of her hand against her forehead a few times. “Stupid…! _God,_ what--? ‘Spaced out’--?”

Junko, probably ignoring the redhead’s added hisses, extends her hand wordlessly and pats the cement next to her, her left hand never stopping it’s rapid typing. She wants Himiko to join her.

The former magician can’t exactly say no, could she? She’s already made her presence known, so turning around and running just felt a little silly. And considering how the time limit was in an astounding two hours, it was best not to tempt further misfortune by making an even bigger enemy out of the Ultimate Despair. 

Himiko shuffles to her assigned seat timidly, hesitantly removing her shoes and socks to set them gently down next to her. Leaving quite a bit of distance between herself and Junko, the former mage slowly dips her feet into the pool in front of her, flinching at the water initially but soon relaxing into it. The heat of the day had left the pool warm. It was a chilling contrast to her upper body, which was shivering from an icy feeling of fear. 

Junko continues on with her typing, as if Himiko wasn’t there at all. She allows multiple moments to pass for the redhead to chill out, even if that meant only slightly wrangling her trembling to a moderate extent. The fashionista was working on pages and pages of code that Himiko simply could not comprehend, so much so that it hurt the redhead’s eyes whenever she looked over at its screen. She only managed to grasp certain phrases and words, like “K1” and “Cyprus_Startup”. The rest meld and muddle together into one ambiguous blob, until eventually Himiko’s eyes drift elsewhere.

The pool water they were in was remarkably clear, this weird, chlorine-infested turquoise color that was further amplified by the bright pool lights. Himiko was focused so intensely on not angering the Ultimate Despair and not making eye contact that she’s already memorised everything in the pool. Junko was sporting this one scar on her calf that was shaped almost like an ‘S’, looking much like she had gotten bored and dragged a nail up her leg. And now, all of the sudden, the redhead has grown fixated on this one scab up Junko’s calf, looking hella weird as she spaces out while facing that direction.

“Ew,” The fashionista sneers. “God, you and that Slenderman you work with have this really weird habit of staring directly at me when, like, I don’t want your eyes on me. At all.”

Himiko blinks, blubbering again, “I-I didn’t mean-- I’m just really tired, and--”

“Ugh, whatever. I’m used to stalkers at this point,” Junko wiggles her fingers in the air, cracking her knuckles before returning to the keyboard. “If you’re crazy enough to be outside _this_ late, then I guess I can’t really stop you. Might be your last time in a pool, so better make it count, y’know?”

The redhead squints, trying not to look visibly unsettled, “...Right.”

Junko hums chirpily, tapping her full hands against the keyboard in a manner that shows she’s obviously bored with this restless coding endeavour and is ready to quit for the night. She slaps the laptop closed, sets it down fairly roughly next to her, and returns to an upright position. Inelegantly, she kicks both feet at the pool, sending water flying forwards with a few stray droplets landing on Himiko’s clothes.

“Water is so fun,” The fashionista drawls, in a tone that implied that water was not, in fact, fun. “Anyways, tell me more! What’s up with you today, Koko? Why are you out here?"

Too intimidated to lie, Himiko mumbles a quaint, “U-Uh… Just going for a walk. Before everything happens, I guess. I went to go find Korekiyo and warn him, but now I’m just doing whatever…”

“Why are you walking? Isn’t there, like…. A massacre about to happen, or something?”

“I was heading... back to my room.”

“Why’s that?”

“U-Um, I just feel… safer, there. It’s kinda scary out here.”

 _“Eugh,_ even your _problems_ are boring,” Junko sighs. Himiko’s nose twitches at the abrupt volume. “Why can’t you be a more entertaining pain in my side?? Start some shit??”

Himiko tenses, hand curling around the edge of the pool, “U-Uh, sorry…? Ma’am...??? Uh--”

 _“Ma’am??_ I’m not fuckin’ forty! I’m like, nineteen, maybe!” The Ultimate Despair blinks at her own statement, eyebrows narrowing in confusion. “Gonna be honest, it’s kind of a blur.”

“M-My bad, um--” The redhead takes this as her sign to leave, attempting to push her legs up out of the pool. “My bad, that’s my bad--”

“No, sit,” Junko demands. Himiko complies instantly. “I wanna talk to you.”

“Why? We don’t really have… a lot of time, so--”

“You get why I said all that the other day, right?”

The redhead hesitates, mouth turning unusually dry. The other day. Right. It’s like the Ultimate Despair was giving Himiko more reason to be incredibly wary of her, adding more excuses for Himiko to act cautious or be skeptical of what she says and does. It’s not like she would be able to simply forget that threat, not in an environment like _this._ It was starting to sound like this wasn’t a casual conversation more-so than it was a followup session regarding Himiko and Korekiyo getting caught knowing Junko’s real identity. What a great discussion for Himiko to endure mere hours away from another life or death situation.

“Yeah,” The redhead answers.

“Okay, good. I don’t believe you, but good,” Junko replies. Himiko squints, but only at the pool so she doesn’t piss anyone off. “I know it’s hard to imagine, but I’m sorta universally hated around these parts, so it’d be best if everybody didn’t know I was here, yeah?”

“Then why did you come?” Himiko accuses weakly. “Couldn’t you just… not show up?”

Junko tilts her head to the side, lips curling upwards in a sardonic grin, “I already told you this, didn’t I? They dragged me here, tooth and nail! Total dickheads, all of them. Did they think I _wanted_ to mingle with all of these losers? Please.”

“Nobody else wants to be here, either,” The redhead mutters. “Trust me.”

“Oh, totally. ‘Specially not with Junko Enoshima. Soooooooooo, you better keep quiet about that, yeah?”

Himiko stiffens. She… _did_ just confront Tenko about “Sakine” actually being Ultimate Despair. And in front of the majority of her class, too. Who knows who had heard her? Maybe it was all too late to make promises. All Himiko could hope for, now, was that none of her classmates snitch on Junko. At least not in a way that Junko could trace it back to the redhead.

“Yeah,” Himiko agrees emptily. 

“Cool, cool.”

Himiko’s eyes trail back towards the pool in front of her, kicking her legs forward underneath the water. Her eyebrows furrow almost defiantly.

“Was there… a _reason_ why you had Tenko do that for you?” She accuses, voice low yet gradually gaining confidence. “Uh-- That first day. You… had her run into the basement, right? I-I mean, she could have gotten really hurt, and you still--”

“Who?” Junko interrupts dumbly, before shifting back to a neutral expression. _“Ohhhhh,_ right. Yeah, I mean, there wasn’t much to it, when you think about it. I wanted something and she was right there. It was a matter of convenience.”

There were some awfully cruel methods used just for the sake of “convenience”. The Masterkey must be a pretty important item if it called for this level of severity. Himiko just can’t _imagine_ threatening somebody’s family or partner just so they would run some errands for them. But, to be entirely honest, it’s not like she’s that intimidating. If she still had her magic, she might have been able to turn her into a frog…

“When did she tell you this?”

“I figured it out myself. I just… talked to her,” The redhead admits, nose upturned.

Junko exhales through her nostrils, slightly amused at the thought, “Of course. She didn’t seem like one to keep secrets.”

“Couldn’t _you_ have gone to grab the Mas-- The thing?” Himiko corrects herself. She’s already gotten enough people in trouble. “Why did you have to drag Tenko into it?”

“Uh?? Hello??” Junko squints condescendingly at her, grabbing the cane she had lying to her left. With little grace, she waves the object in front of Himiko’s face, making it very clear that there was no way she was running around when she still very much needed it to walk. The redhead hisses slightly inwards through her teeth, having forgotten that was a thing for a moment. “You think _I_ was gonna run around?? I hate sweat.”

Himiko can’t help but think that sweat wasn’t the only reason, “Still…! I-It… Um…”

 _“Um… I-It… Um…”_ Junko mocks. The redhead’s face scrunches. “God. You’re not entertaining at all.”

“...Are you just gonna sit here and insult me the whole time?” Himiko deadpans, initial fear replaced by irritation. “...’Cuz I got places to be…”

“Nah, nah. All jokes! Stay.”

“...Okay…” They sure didn’t _feel_ like jokes, but then again Himiko sometimes wasn’t the best at detecting sarcasm. “Well, then, what are _you_ doing here?”

“Tanning,” Junko answers. It’s pitch black outside. “Other than that, not much. Waiting for things to be over, I guess.”

Himiko sneaks a quick glance over at the laptop next to Junko. Obviously she had been doing more than just waiting, but the redhead had a pretty good feeling that asking her about her work would lead the both of them nowhere. Besides, it wasn’t as if the former mage would be able to understand any of that coding, anyways. 

“Shouldn’t you be waiting… somewhere… _not_ out in the open?” Himiko questions.

Junko shrugs, “It’s not like anybody looks out here, especially not _this_ late at night. You’re just, like, a freak, or something,” Himiko can’t help squint further. “‘Sides, I’d rather be somewhere not near people, y’know? If they don’t know I exist, I’ve got _zero_ chance of being chosen for whatever cesspool murder plan they’re pulling out of their butts.”

That makes… sense, but Himiko would still find the open space quite frightening. Still, if Junko’s main concern were people like the enforcement team, then maybe it was best to separate herself from the general crowd. Being in a massive group of people makes it easier for the enforcement team to not only locate her, but also locate the rest of her group at the exact same time. Maybe, just maybe, considering that they need forty people to sacrifice, it would be easier for the enforcement team to take people in groups instead of individually. It’s not like Himiko knows just how they are going to choose forty people to kill. It could be random. 

Maybe… going back to that hotel room with the others wasn’t safe. Or maybe she’s just overthinking it. Surely just standing out in the open like this was the least safe option of all. What happens if they can’t choose forty people? What happens if another massacre ensues? Himiko would want to _hide._

“Okay, but… Even if you’re hidden from… the _enforcement_ team, I guess, you’re still not hidden from the _hotel,”_ Himiko expresses as coherently as possible. “Y-You know… if the ‘forty person’ thing doesn’t work out, then you’re just… out in the open for one of those guns to kill you--”

“Oh, nah. They’re not gonna kill me.”

Himiko halts abruptly. She has to allow that phrase to process before her expression shifts into visible confusion. Junko’s tone wasn’t as arrogant as the phrase implied it should be. It was said straight up, like the Ultimate Despair knew this as a fact.

“They’re… not going to kill you?” Himiko parrots, fingers curling around the edge of the pool again.

“Nope,” Junko chirps. “Too valuable.”

“Okay, what do you--? What do you _mean_ by--”

“Well, this is obviously Danganronpa’s doing. And since it’s Danganronpa, they’re not gonna kill me,” The Ultimate Despair explains with chilling pointedness. It wasn’t an opinion to her. “I’m sorta the face of this company, or whatever-- next to Makoto, at least-- So they’re not gonna kill either of us. They need me for more dramatic reveals! _‘Surprise! I’m totally alive, despite dying, like, 53 times already! This killing game was once again all my doing, even if that reveal is so overdone that you expected it already!’_ All I really have to worry about is the other participants, but other than that I’m practically invincible here.”

Himiko can’t help but frown. “Sakine” was so confident while everybody else was cowering in fear, raised on this imaginary pedestal by a company run on such unfair morals. 

“You sound very… certain,” The redhead says.

“Please. It’s practically in my contracts; If I die, everybody that my old self was related to gets sued into infinity and beyond. It’s so super fun! As long as this company is up and running, they straight up won’t let me die. And trust me, I’ve tried,” The last part comes off as a joke, but it soon starts to fade into a look of pensiveness as her gaze trails forwards. The smile is still there, but her eyes narrow in a fatigued manner. “I’ve tried.”

Himiko can do nothing but nod. The conversation eases into a tense voicelessness. 

The redhead let’s Junko sit in solemn silence as she reaches into her jacket’s pocket for her phone. 9:12 PM. She should get going.

“Leaving already? Phooey,” Junko whines, noticing the redhead sneaking glances at her clock. “I’m so looonelyyyyy…”

“Y-Yeah, I told my friends I’d meet up with them,” Himiko excuses. It wasn't _entirely_ the truth, considering Shuichi told them to meet up at 10 PM, but it wasn’t entirely a lie, either. “I should get going.”

“Whateverrrr. See ya ‘round, Koko.”

“...Right. You too, uh-- _Sakine.”_

Junko giggles sweetly. It’s piercing. The fashionista allows her laughter to echo as Himiko grabs her shoes and socks, walking barefoot into the hotel.

-=+=-

“... Queen of Hearts?”

“Go fish. ‘Taro, four of spades?”

Rantaro throws his four of spades towards Himiko with a dramatic sigh, “You’re cheating.”

“It was our fault for trying to win against a magician,” Ryoma says, shaking his head at the stack in his hands. “She can read our cards.”

“Precisely. My magic is endless,” The redhead drawls playfully.

9:50 PM. The hotel couldn’t have been any more tense.

Well, that was a lie. Sorry. The hotel room would have been considerably more horrible if certain people (Miu) were hidden in there with them, causing certain others (Kokichi) to start an argument and send the entire room into a heated yelling-fest where nobody wins and somebody (HIMIKO) gets shoved into the corner of a bedframe. 

Compared to what it _could_ have turned into, the room was fairly tame. Rantaro, Ryoma, and Himiko were off in one corner with a deck of cards, sitting in a tiny circle and playing a rather passive game of Go Fish. Himiko sat against Tenko, who was leaning against the wall and observing their game, oohing and ahing at every move the redhead made. Maki and Kaito watch TV from the floor. Kirumi, Angie and Gonta murmured to each other, occupying Gonta’s twin bed, while Kaede and Shuichi occupied Ryoma’s. Kokichi lay right beside Kaede, face-down, seemingly napping this whole ordeal away.

Kaede seemed a little worse for wear this evening. Her face looked a little dead, almost as if she had been crying but had come to an abrupt stop, her emotions switching off with her tears. Shuichi talked with her-- he was being oddly talkative, that night-- but Kaede barely lifted her hands to respond. Himiko had overheard something about “a talk with Miu”, but couldn’t draw much information from their hushed discussion. 

“Eight of clubs?” Ryoma asks Rantaro.

The green teenager looks down at his small deck of cards, exhales heavily, and hands the former tennis player his card with a light smile. Ryoma responds with a low “heh”, before placing down his new stack of two. 

Himiko couldn’t help but look at the clock. The minutes seemed to tick down so slowly, the time moving at a snail’s pace as the time limit drew ever nearer. There was a part of her that praised the clock for acting so slowly, knowing what would happen once it ticks down to 11 PM. The other part of her just wanted it to move faster. Just get it over with. Maybe if she lost track of the time, Himiko would forget about the dread that sits heavily in her gut until eventually the time limit passes. She would then be euphoric if she realizes it passed without anybody dying, or, at the very least, she would be killed without having to endure any more of this nauseating fear. 

The cards tremble in her hands. Tenko often liked to swoop down and hold them steady, in a matter that was playful but still greatly appreciated by Himiko. The less people who notice her vibrating, the better.

“Ten of spades?” She requests.

“From who?” Rantaro asks.

Himiko pauses to think for a moment, before answering with a firm, “You.”

Rantaro whistles under his breath as he hands over his ten of spades, one of the last cards in his deck.

“Wow, you suck at this,” Kaito comments from afar. Rantaro chuckles in his direction before he turns back to his remaining card.

“Himiko is very good at this game!! She’s probably the best in the world!!” Tenko compliments brightly.

Himiko simpers, nestling further into her girlfriend, “Nyeh… I’m pretty good, but not _the best…”_

Their laughter doesn’t help much to mask the tension. The digital clock ticks over once again. 10:03 PM.

“You’d think there would be a circuit breaker,” Ryoma starts, handing over one of his cards to a pensive Rantaro. “Something to cut the power. Considering all of those cameras are connected to some sorta power.”

“They probably tried that, already,” Shuichi answers, overhearing. “I-It would have been one of the first things they attempted, right?”

“It might be a bit late, now,” Rantaro hums in monotone under his breath.

“I don’t think it’s too late… I just don’t think it’s possible.”

“At best it’d cut the power off. We could ask--” Ryoma starts his sentence but cuts himself off again, eyes drilled into his cards. The name ‘Miu’ sits on his tongue, but considering everything it just felt a little far-fetched. “Nevermind.”

The Go Fish group falls back into silence, with Shuichi following. Ryoma continues the game solemnly. It’s less playful, now. Himiko’s back begins to hurt again, the pain spiking from the bruise.

Gonta suggests they turn off the lights, so Shuichi does so at exactly 10:07. The TV gets turned off at 10:08. The Go Fish game concludes at 10:09. It feels calculated, the amount of distractions growing lesser and lesser, leaving the room in complete darkness and silence. Conversations turn into whispers. The curtains are closed and the movement subsides greatly. Everybody was using their phones to see in front of them. Kokichi continues his long nap, and Himiko can’t help but sorta miss his distracting quips.

The knocking starts at exactly 10:10 PM.

It’s quiet at first, hesitant. Somebody was timidly knocking, expecting an answer from the group. A few members of the class immediately halt their conversation, turning off their phone’s flashlights to avoid further suspicion. The hotel room comes to a striking halt, with even Himiko sucking in her breath. She can feel her heartbeat in her ears, the breath she’s holding wedged firmly in her throat. 

For a moment, the knocking stops. There’s a muffled conversation that takes place briefly behind the door, a discussion between presumably two people about what to do next. One of them sounded more feminine, her voice monotone and almost expressionless. The second was a male voice, one that Himiko couldn’t recognise. The class was forced to listen to them as they waited with bated breath, all of them frozen in place.

The knocking starts up again, except this time it’s much more forceful. Almost as if somebody was slamming their entire forearm against the door.

“Hey, we know you’re in there,” The male voice announces. “We’ve got surveillance footage.”

“You need to come out. We’re having a meeting,” The female voice says. 

The class of Season 53 snap their heads towards each other, waiting for somebody to make the call. Obviously _nobody_ was willing to attend another one of those “group meetings”. Every single group meeting involving every participant at this convention has only led to incredibly horrifying events. It’s happened more than enough for Himiko to reach the conclusion that attending this meeting would only lead to even worse things. The demand chills her to her very core, her teeth gnawing at her bottom lip in order to keep her mouth shut.

Nobody knows what to do. Even more phone flashlights turn off, threatening to plunge the entire room into full darkness. Tenko was turning cold behind Himiko, body turning rigid as the darkness further consumed the room. She wasn’t one for darkness, anymore, a fact they had all come to learn. It was almost like nobody was breathing. How awful would they feel if they were the one to alert the knockers to their position? How terrible would it be if Himiko were to exhale too loudly, making damn sure that whoever was behind the door knew they were in hiding?

“Final warning!” The male voice yells from the other side.

Still, nobody moves. Shuichi swings his legs over the side of the bed, almost as if readying himself to answer the door, but both Kaito and Maki begin waving him down, one much more forcefully than the other. 

With no reaction or audible response from the class, the knocking comes to a stop. For a moment, Himiko lets herself believe in the faint, budding hope that perhaps they had given up. Maybe they believed that nobody was in this hotel room, that their surveillance footage was wrong or that they got the wrong room number.

But as soon as she falls for this false hope, another noise starts to squeak against the door. It sounded like metal scraping against metal, something twisting and turning quietly. The class leans in, listening for what they could possibly be doing, before Shuichi suddenly shoots off of the bed and towards the door. He turns on the lights, causing Himiko to blink harshly as others groan.

Kaito swats his arm, almost as if the light was a physical being, “Shuichi, what are you--?”

“They’re unscrewing the door,” The Ultimate Detective replies hurridly, at full volume. “This is just-- _Ridiculous--”_

Shuichi presses his face rapidly against the peephole, checking if his theory was correct. Guessing by the speedy pace that he threw the door open, in order to get the two people to stop unscrewing Ryoma and Gonta’s door off of its hinges, Himiko could only guess that he was correct. 

The two people waiting on the other side of the door were the very definition of intimidating. One of them, with the nametag Peko Pekoyama, had her arms crossed firmly against her chest, her face hardened and stony. Her partner, this buff man that looked much older, maybe in his forties, holds the screwdriver in his right hand like a knife. Ultimate Policeman. The tool looked almost puny in his grip.

The policeman glanced over the room, his expression twitching upon noticing the age of the general group before it shifts back to a firm scowl, “Out, kids. We’re hosting another meeting. It’s mandatory.”

“U-Uh… no thank you,” Shuichi replies with an awkward thumbs up, turning to close the door on them again.

Peko stops it with a forceful hand, “You’re going to have to come with us.”

Maki rises off of the floor, her expression matching the Ultimate Swordswoman’s almost perfectly, “And what will you do if we don’t?”

“This isn’t a choice,” The policeman says, refusing to answer the assassin’s questions. “Come on. Black Rose Ballroom. It’ll be over quick.”

That doesn’t help at all. If anything, it causes every member of Season 53 to tense further, as if bracing themselves for impact. 

It’s only then that Himiko notices the weapons that the two knockers have. Peko has a rather obvious sword wrapping around her back, sheathed in carefully weaved bamboo strips. The policeman had not one, but two weapons attached to his person: a handgun that sat in a holster on his right hip, and another much longer gun that rested on his back. Enforcement team members, the both of them. They had to be. 

It could only mean one thing: The enforcement team was collecting people to head to the Black Rose Ballroom. All of the sudden, Himiko violently began to regret not taking Tenko and Angie to those vents, began to regret not choosing that hiding spot with Korekiyo. Everything in her body was growing intensely stressed and taut, arms shaking at her side and legs tucked up to her chest. Tenko slowly wraps her hands around her, in some last resort hope to protect the redhead against harm that they were undeniably going to have to walk into.

“Let’s go,” Peko says, nodding in the direction of the ballroom they had to move to. “We don’t have much time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 35/40


	39. what choice but simple duty?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> these kids are going to need so much fucking therapy

Himiko exhales. Her breath is shaky. The sound is drowned out by the sea of noise.

It feels as if she’s hit some sort of glass wall. She can observe the scene in front of her, watch in horror from afar, but can never feel a part of it. Her mind seems to fog over at the influx of people, the reality of the situation settling in for many, memories of what had happened resurfacing up Himiko’s spine as she sits and waits. It was like she was an unwilling observer of a situation she should be a part of, only a passive bystander to an event she should be experiencing fullhand. There’s a chilling numbness that vibrates through her entire body, one that sinks into her very core. She just feels so hollow. So unresponsive.

The noise feels muffled, in a way, almost as if she had invisible headphones stuck over her ears. No music. Only muffled, high-pitched yelling from a distressed group of participants. The crowd sat restlessly, all of them placed in organized rows, made to sit down by the armed members of the enforcement crew. Once again, Himiko sits rigidly in the back, her eyes glazed over and her mind elsewhere. Trying desperately not to think about what is about to happen, what  _ is _ happening. She’s at a standstill with her own mind; As much as she wants to do something, she only finds herself staring forward with severe mental absence. 

Tenko’s shoulder was pressed up against Himiko’s, and her leg bounced so rapidly and forcefully that it was jolting the redhead, as well. She was probably talking, considering her mouth was moving as she faced Angie, but Himiko couldn’t hear anything past the occasional worried exclamation. Shuichi and Rantaro were behind her, maybe, and Kirumi sat tensely in her wheelchair to Himiko’s right. Other member’s of the redhead’s class were scattered nearby, none of them leaving each other’s sight. Himiko knows they’re around, but their voices still tend to fade into the background. 

It’s like they aren’t there. It’s like Himiko is alone. A bystander to an event she should be taking part in.

She can see Tenko checking her phone out of the corner of her eye. It was something like 10:30, maybe just minutes earlier. Himiko couldn’t seem to grasp the actual time.

Somebody suddenly slaps their hand against Himiko’s shoulder, forcefully dragging her from this dissociative fit of hers and into the real world. The noise returns in heavy waves, everything blinking back into focus so rapidly that the redhead yips.

“What catering do you want at your funeral?” Kokichi asks with a smile, the notes app open on his phone. “I’m going around and asking everybody.”

“Quit it…” Himiko snips, turning back around with a frown. Her arms tremble as she crosses them. “I-It’s not funny.”

“Personally, I’m thinking I’ll only serve glasses of water. Then, I’ll hire only one bathroom! If my beloved guests want to get there first, they’ll have to fight to the death over it!” The former supreme leader continues, writing the idea down as he continues. 

Himiko stares forward, absorbing the setting slowly. The stage was still set up, one lonesome microphone standing in the centre of it all. That massive banner was still hanging, slightly slumped, the words ‘WELCOME DANGANRONPA PARTICIPANTS!’ still written on it in bold. She can still remember showing up that first day, an uneasy feeling setting into her stomach. Himiko had a bad feeling about this convention from the very beginning. She should have acted on it.  _ God, _ she should have acted.

It’s too late. Everything is out of her control, everything is too irreversible, now. It’s so hopeless. It’s a terrible, nauseating feeling to be this helpless, one that wedges in her throat. There’s nothing she can do. There’s nothing that she  _ is _ doing. She’s just sitting there, useless, useless,  _ useless. _

“If you ask nicely, I'll get them to serve those weird gummy stars you like,” Kokichi offers.

Himiko replies with another sigh, just barely stifling a nervous yawn, “You do this all the  _ time… _ I don’t like these kinds of jokes!”

“A-Are they not hilarious? Witty, even??”

“I-I get  _ you _ think they’re funny, but I’m kinda-- kinda--” She chokes on her words for a moment, before lowering her volume to a distinct whisper.  _ “Scared.” _

Kokichi deflates a little, still grinning from ear to ear, “Oh! My bad. I didn’t realise, my love. My little cabbage. My little microbe. My half an orange--”

“Is he bothering you, Mimi?” Tenko asks. She flips to Kokichi. “Are you bothering her???”

“It’s fine… Just-- K-Keep it down, okay…?” Himiko pleads, slowly curling in on herself. 

Tenko looks forward remorsefully, fingers tapping against her knees. There’s a moment of silence, one where Kokichi leaves to further distract himself and others, before the former aikido master wordlessly reaches over to engulf the redhead protectively. Himiko sinks into her embrace with a hollow exhale.

People have been streaming into the ballroom, either in groups or individually, almost always accompanied by an enforcement team member. Participants were led into the ballroom once more, biting at their niles or fidgeting nervously, looking back at their enforcement-team-mandated supervisor and demanding to know what was happening. The noise continues to grow, everybody shouting just to hear themselves speak. Himiko can hear conversations from all around, all of them melding into one giant blob of noise.

There were people in the crowd she was starting to recognise. Akane, that gymnast lady she had talked to during the start of this convention, was stationed way at the front with the rest of the enforcement team, armed and ready. ‘Sakine’, whose “brilliant hiding spot” had been compromised, is blending perfectly into the crowd that surrounds her, her head down and looking at her phone. It’s like she wasn’t even there in the first place.

There’s a group of participants debating on just tackling the nearest enforcement team member and trying to start a riot-- one long enough that it will pass the time limit. One of them insists that the enforcement team was in the minority numbers-wise, but another one keeps bringing up the fact that the firearms the enforcement team has practically evens them out. Himiko reckons it was a reckless idea, but it might work if they had people like Tenko, Maki, and Gonta on their side. Nothing the redhead could do, though. Except curl into a ball if the riot starts and pray.

Another group was discussing simply making a break for it. Another reckless idea made even more difficult with the firearms in the area, and another one where Himiko would be at a severe disadvantage. If everybody makes a break for it, multiple people will get trampled. The exits were small and Himiko was smaller. There just wasn’t  _ anything. _ There wasn’t  _ anything _ she could do and  _ everything _ was falling apart and there’s nothing they can do anymore. Nothing they can do.  _ Nothing _ Himiko can do.

The last group to arrive consisted of solely enforcement team members, all of them chatting amongst each other. Himiko squints, noticing Miu Iruma within that small crowd. As soon as the rest of her class realises the inventor was here, the doors close. Two enforcement team members stand in front of it, guarding it. Both armed. 

They were making one thing very, very clear: Nobody was leaving. And nobody was entering, either. That part gave Himiko very, very slight hope. 

They haven’t found Korekiyo. 

The vents were the right choice. Of course, the light feeling that comes with that realisation fades almost immediately, as soon as Himiko understands that the vents were the right choice and she had made the  _ wrong _ one.

Miu starts to pass, her eyes shifting over to her class before she quickly snaps her gaze elsewhere, attempting to look as if she was never looking over in the first place. Rantaro notices her and grabs her arm, pulling her towards the class. 

His first question for her gets lost in the sea of noise. It was something like, “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” Miu answers, expression stony and voice firm. Her eyes shift. An obvious lie.

“Huh!?” Kaito butts in, Maki crossing her arms next to him. “There’s no  _ way _ you don’t know,  _ you’re _ the one who’s been hanging around--”

_ “I said I don’t know.” _

Yanking her arm coldly out of Rantaro’s grip, Miu scurries off to the front of the room, nose upturned. A lady with blue hair, who had been talking with her upon entry, watches as she leaves with an unreadable expression. Any hope of confirmation leaves with the inventor.

“We’re gonna die,” Maki deadpans.

Almost everybody turns to disagree, but Kaito is the first to chime in, “No, we’re not.”

“Nah, I agree with Makiroll, over there. This is definitely it for me!” Kokichi nods chirpily. “If you guys don’t cry at my funeral, my ghost will haunt you all forever!”

Himiko slams her palms over her ears again with an aggrieved groan. Many others copy her agitated grunt, rolling their eyes nervously or badgering the former supreme leader not to say things like that, especially in a situation like this. The class once again derails into loud shouting, all of them trying to come up with some kind of solution, some kind of plan, all the while yelling over the crowd of people. It’s too loud. Everything is too  _ loud  _ and everybody just needs to  _ be quiet. _ Himiko can’t run and escape the noise, she can’t leave to even  _ breathe. _

The more she inhales, the thinner the air seems to get. It’s almost like her throat is tightening. 

The lady with blue hair, whose nametag labels her as  _ ‘Sayaka Maizono’ _ , approaches the nearest member of Season 53 with a cautious gesture. Her face looks unnaturally pale, eyes haunted behind this fake look of assurance.

“You’ll all be fine,” She says. It’s directed at Season 53,  _ only _ Season 53, her voice lowered so nobody behind her could hear. “Deep breathes, okay?”

With a hesitant thumbs up, she quickly scampers off, joining the rest of her team up by the front. Himiko tries to follow her advice but can’t seem to find the air to take that deep of a breath. It was barely any assurance for the terrified class.

It takes another few seconds of Himiko to snap back to reality, having drifted away for a moment, before she realises that Makoto has stepped on stage. The microphone wasn’t on, as noticeable from his excessive breathing that goes by unheard. He’s scanning over the restless crowd, nodding occasionally as he listens to the Ultimate Biker Gang Leader, who stands behind him. Kyoko and Byakuya are off to the side, and neither of them look too happy to be there. 

It’s the worst Himiko has ever seen Makoto. He’s disoriented, noticeably shaken. Yet there’s still this aura of hollowness that is emitted from him as he watches over the participants, views each of them individually. Truly grasps the situation, grasps the lives he is taking into his own hands.

In his hands was this small notebook. Himiko most certainly can’t tell what’s written in it from this far away, but can’t help but assume its contents were not good. Nothing about any of this was  _ good. _

The microphone squeals with feedback, and suddenly Makoto was audible. The crowd of people allow a ripple of silence to shoot through them before they immediately turn their attention towards the Ultimate Hope, shouting and yelling in his direction.

“Sorry about….” Makoto starts, words short and chipped, over-enunciated. “Keeping you up... This late.”

_ “Let us fucking out of here!” _ Somebody shrieks at him, followed by the most viscous wave of support Himiko has possibly ever heard. 

“That-- We, uh, can’t do that right now. We won’t… keep you long.”

That’s only what Himiko assumes Makoto says, because the hollering of the crowd practically drowned out the sound of the microphone. People were standing, screaming, crying, demanding to be let out and return to their rooms or their hiding spots, anywhere but in this  _ crowd of people. _ Himiko curls up, still sitting down, burying her face into an also-sitting Tenko’s shoulder. It is very, very loud. She can’t hear her own thoughts. 

Makoto tries again, if you could even call his attempts “trying”, but everything he says gets overpowered by the masses. They know what will happen if they stay there, and they know  _ damn _ well what will happen when that time limit runs out. It seems that the only thing they can do to hinder the enforcement team’s progress, considering their opposition is heavily armed, is scream over Makoto as he tries to explain. 

Mondo, who was moving to step off of the stage, quickly stops and turns back to Makoto. He does not bother to attempt barking over the horde, instead whispering something to the Ultimate Hope. Makoto blinks at him, then at the crowd, before nodding, consenting to whatever plan Mondo had just suggested.

The Ultimate Biker Gang leader grabs his handgun, inserts a magazine, and fires the gun into the air.

It shuts people up immediately. Participants scramble to cover their heads, many of them complying and rapidly sitting back down. A burst of frightened screams is immediately followed by fearful silence. 

“Listen up!” Mondo barks. 

He nearly leans forward into the microphone again, almost like he was about to apologise, but decides against it at the last second and steps off of the stage to join his group. There’s a rumble of horrified whispers that spark through the crowd, but everybody was much too afraid to raise their voices again.

“O-Okay! Sorry-- We just need full cooperation from everybody here, a-and… You’ll be able to go back to your rooms much more quickly if you all comply,” Makoto says. This time, the people listen, however fearfully. “Okay. We are… I’m sorry for bringing everybody here, but we thought it’d be better if everybody knew… what was...”

His voice fades as he looks down at his notebook, running quickly through the pages as everybody looks on in intense dread. Himiko can hear her heartbeat in her ears. Tenko has her arms wrapped around her girlfriend so fiercely that it truly felt like nobody was going to be able to pry the redhead from her grip.

Makoto clears his throat. He’s unsure. The room sits in silence.

“If I call your name, could you please… come backstage,” He requests hesitantly. Despite how weak his voice is, it’s not presented as an option. If he says your name, you  _ will _ be going backstage with them. “Thank you.”

The microphone squeals with feedback once more. It is dangerously quiet, desolate of noise.

It’s at this moment that Himiko gains the insufferable feeling that she is about to die.

It strikes her rather violently, yet the sentiment was not as severely overwhelming as she had expected. It was this quiet, chilling assumption that she was not going to make it out of here alive. There was nothing rational about it, nothing careful or thought out. It was very simple. She was not going to make it out of this convention alive.

There’s little reason why she should think this way. The redhead can’t be sure what the criteria is for this list, but she can make a few assumptions as to why she would be excluded from it. Her talent is not threatening, and she holds little strength. Himiko hasn’t said or done anything in this convention that makes herself a target. She’s a teenager who, even worse, looks like a child. Himiko has done nothing horrible to anybody, at least not to her knowledge, has not intentionally done something so terrible that it deserved this sort of punishment.

But still, her mind clouds over all reason to place the thought of dying in the forefront. Maybe she  _ had _ done something wrong. In fact, now that she thinks about it, she can very clearly remember a certain company that she and a few of her friends singlehandedly dismantled and threw out the window. What if that  _ “Grand Finale”  _ from her season was now coming back to bite her? What if she had made enemies out of the people here? These thoughts seem to swarm her, slam against her skull and freeze her where she’s sitting. There is nothing she can do. There is nothing she  _ is  _ doing. There is nothing, she  _ is  _ nothing. 

Everything feels heavy. It’s so cold. Himiko is trembling. She just wants to go home. She just wants to go  _ home. _

“We’ll start with, um…” 

At Makoto’s opening statement, Himiko could almost feel the entire room collectively tense. Nobody had the guts to speak up. They all watched as the Ultimate Hope ran a finger over what could only be a list of names.

He clears his throat again, “...Is Junko Enoshima here?”

Silence. A beat passes. Nobody breathes.

After a few moments with no response, the crowd begins slowly looking around for the Ultimate Despair. They murmur restlessly, turning their heads to find that familiar, pigtailed girl amongst them. It’s almost as if this was the first time any of them really realised that Junko Enoshima, the villain in almost all of their stories, was in the same building as them.

Himiko, who knows exactly where Junko Enoshima was, turns over to look at ‘Sakine’ with as blank an expression as she could muster. Junko’s head was still down, but upon noticing the rest of the crowd looking around the room she quickly mimicked them, blending in perfectly with the horde. It’s a foolproof plan that disguises her real identity flawlessly, which is only enhanced by her face mask and deep purple eye contacts. For a minute, the fashionista must have rightly assumed that nobody would be able to pick her out amongst the crowd, that nobody would be able to rat her out without analysing her appearance intensely. And, considering how most people were just seconds away from a full blown panic attack, it seemed unlikely that anybody would really be able to tell who she was.

That is, until she turns towards Himiko.

They make eye contact for a brief moment. There’s something in Junko’s expression that shifts, however subtly, like she just remembered what the redhead knew. The fashionista’s purple eyes scan quickly around the former mage, searching for Korekiyo, perhaps, or anybody else who could possibly foil her entire plan. This was what she had expressed concern over, after all: that the people of Danganronpa would turn against her, that they would choose her as a sacrifice. Himiko wonders for a moment if the fashionista was as scared as the rest of them, if it was even  _ possible _ for Junko Enoshima to be as overwhelmingly terrified as the redhead was. 

Was that even a quality the Ultimate Despair could possess? Genuine fear? It’s not a subject Himiko can dwell on for too long. 

Because no matter the answer, the former mage still finds herself nodding in her direction. She’s not sure why she chose to  _ nod _ of all things. Maybe she was so petrified that it was all her body could manage to do. Maybe it was some kind of affirmation, some kind of assurance. It still meant the same thing, no matter what gesture Himiko made.  _ Your secret’s safe with me. _

Junko does nothing but turn back to the front. 

A few of Himiko’s classmates look very subtly over the redhead, remembering that she had briefly mentioned Junko Enoshima the day before. Himiko doesn’t say anything, only looks, almost pleadingly, in their direction. Nobody says anything about it. They trust more in Himiko than they do Makoto, at this point.

Makoto starts to accept that Junko Enoshima was nowhere to be found in this convention. Kyoko looks stoically at the crowd, but says nothing, also. If Himiko blinked, she would have missed Byakuya fidgeting ever so slightly.

“...Alright, um… We’ll continue,” Makoto says. Himiko can’t tell what wavers his voice. Relief? Irritation? “Um… Masumi Kondo ?”

A lady Himiko doesn’t know steps out. She’s a bit older, old enough to be a mother. She doesn’t get to say anything, only looks on in horrified confusion as one of the enforcement team members waves her backstage with their firearm. 

“Koetsu Uyeno? U-Um, Matsuta Utugawa,” The names begin to become statements instead of questions as Makoto grows increasingly more sure of the list. People were hesitantly rising as their name gets called. “Sakuko Asari, Sawao Kido--”

The names didn’t sound familiar, yet every time another participant got called it almost felt like a punch to Himiko’s throat. It’s like she was preparing for the moment where Makoto  _ does _ list a familiar name, whether it be her own or somebody she cares about. What does she do then, if she gets called on? Her first instinct would be to freeze entirely, until eventually an enforcement team member has to walk to the back row and drag her to the backstage area themselves.

The names continue on in the background of Himiko’s frantic pondering. She can see participants standing and being escorted away out of the corners of her eyes, her vision once again blurring until all she can see are colours. They all looked so confused. So helpless. If these were the ‘traitors’ that this convention was so concerned about, Himiko just couldn’t help but wonder what they had done so wrong to earn that title.

“--Kuse Masakazu,” Makoto continues to list, “Haru Yoshikuno--”

It continues. Eight people. Twelve. Shuichi, still standing pointedly behind Himiko’s chair, was counting the participants under his breath, keeping check of how many people were being escorted backstage. His own breath was shaking, just like Himiko’s. He was also preparing for somebody familiar to be called, somebody he cares about.

The thirteenth person to be called must have gotten some kind of grip on the situation, must have finally understood what this list meant, because her cooperation does not come as easily. She sits still in her chair, refusing to get up when called upon. Unfortunately for her, many of her classmates looked directly at her upon hearing her name, practically compromising her position from the very start. She is dragged away quickly by an enforcement team member who spots her in the crowd.

“--Rei Demura,” The names continue endlessly. “Chiaki Nanami, Shuzo Yamashina--”

It gets noisier all of the sudden, the volume increasing for a brief moment. Himiko’s mind is so unfocused, so disoriented and distracted by fear that she can barely understand the quick uprising that starts. 

One of the participants whose name had been called, Shuzo Yamashina, maybe, refuses to stand up and walk when his name is announced. A final act of defiance. An enforcement team member finds him quickly. 

The next moments happen so rapidly that Himiko could have blinked and missed it, faster than she could possibly intuit on an emotional level. Shuzo grabs for the enforcement team member’s gun, struggling with it for a while, screaming that the selection was unfair, before a shot rings out and silences him immediately. The crowd screams in horror. Makoto pauses only briefly, his grip against the notebook tightening and his gaze locked firmly on the paper in front of him, before he continues with the list.

Tears are flooding down Himiko’s face. Chiaki Nanami has to step around Shuzo’s body as she stumbles backstage.

“A-Asa Arashi, um… Hiyoko Saonji, Kanade Otonokoji, Kinji Saeki--”

Everybody has reached the same conclusion about what “going backstage” meant, by now. If the recently dead body had not already given it away, the sheer haste that this meeting was being carried out with and the level of intensity each enforcement team member carried with them was enough of a hint. People were full on sobbing in their chairs, hiding their faces in their hands, curling in on themselves to appear smaller. There truly was no hope amidst the group of participants. Nothing to cling on to. Not even the Ultimate Hope could give any sort of affirmation in this convention, could find no light in such a desolate place such as this. 

Twenty three. Twenty eight. Shuichi was still counting. Each added number was like a stab to the gut. 

“--Raku Ichioka, Shogo Rakuyama--” If Himiko was any more lucid she might have put some thought into why nobody from Season One was being called up. It’s like Makoto is hitting every season but his own. Or Season 53’s. “--Satsuki Iranami, Shusake Kido--”

Thirty three. Thirty four.

There’s a pause. Himiko had gotten so used to the sound of Makoto’s listing as a background noise that the halt in his dialogue sends her flying back to reality again. She can’t see anything through her glassy eyes. Every time she blinks, tears seem to fall down her face and then form again in her eyes, forever clouding her vision.

She can’t tell what Makoto is doing, or how he’s feeling, from this far back. In fact, Himiko would rather not see anything. Tenko has wrapped her arms much tighter around her, turning away from the blood in the middle of the aisle to face the back wall. In the former aikido master’s attempt to turn away, her arms also managed to cover Himiko's eyes. The redhead finds herself hiding behind her girlfriend in cowardliness. She wasn’t sure what Sayaka Maizono was trying to sell to them with all of that “you’ll be fine” crap.  **Bullshit.**

Makoto stares at the notebook. His eyebrows furrow. He then goes back to the front few pages, running his finger over the names he had just called. Makoto flips back to the page he was on. Something is wrong.

“There isn’t enough--”

His declaration is cut very short as soon as he realises the microphone is still on. Makoto quickly clamps his hand over the device, shouting something quickly to Mondo. The Ultimate Biker Gang Leader jumps onstage to assist with this sudden problem of his. The noise picks up again.

If Himiko doesn’t leave this chair soon, she is going to have a panic attack. That’s barely even an opinion at this point. It is a fact. She can feel one starting to rise up her throat, tightening every airway and making it almost impossible to breathe. Her anxiety meds are still up in her hotel room and the doors are locked and guarded. They’ve made it very clear that resilience will be met with gunfire.

Everybody here is expendable, and Himiko was not about to get fucking shot because she needs to take her stupid meds.

“How many people left?” Maki asks curtly. Her hand is over her right mouth, but it’s less out of shock than it is out of muted observation.

Shuichi is the first to answer, still looking directly forward. He’s very pointedly avoiding the dead body that still lies on the floor, “Six.”

_ Six?  _ It felt like they’ve been counting forever. Like they’ve already gone through every participant in this building. Himiko isn’t sure her poor heart can handle six more names being called. It’s terrible to think that she feels any sort of relief out of the fact none of her friends have been called yet, that nobody too familiar has been called upon. There’s little salvation that comes from that fact. It just doesn’t seem to help at all.

“Hmm,” Kokichi hums. He’s sitting next to Himiko, now, staring straight forwards. His gaze doesn’t land on Makoto; Instead it falls on Miu, who sits rigidly in the front row. Unscathed. “It’s taking a while.”

_ “What _ is?” Maki hisses in his direction.

“Nothing, I just thought that by now…” His voice trails again. “Hm. Nevermind.”

“Miu told you  _ nothing  _ about this?” Kaito whispers in Kaede’s direction, noticeably frazzled. 

Kaede shakes her head, forgetting that she had to raise her hands to answer for a moment. Her eyes stare forward at Miu, but instead of maintaining intense eye contact with the inventor like the former supreme leader was doing, her stare flickers away sporadically. There’s no way she isn’t frightened, as well, but she’s putting on a surprisingly strong face. Either that, or her horror has been muted by the intensely betrayed look she’s been sporting practically the entire time. 

_...Nothing, _ Kaede signs haphazardly.  _ Nothing.  _

Mondo and Makoto were still talking, all the while Himiko tried with everything she had to steady her breathing. Or try to breathe  _ at all. _ Her inhales sound pathetic, like weak whimpers. Heavy dread sits on her lungs and bangs at her stomach. Her back aches with every pitiful breath in, the pain from her bruising coming back tenfold to truly agonise her. She’s choking on her tears, drowning in water she can not see, barely able to wade above the crowd and gasp for breath. It hurts to breathe. To be there. To sit there and do nothing. Everything hurts.

Mondo flips Makoto’s notepad over for the Ultimate Hope. He points at a page, way in the back of the notepad. Makoto leans forward.

“K--”

And instantly stops. The first vowel, the first sound, that dreaded “Kh-” noise that Makoto emits was enough for the Ultimate Hope to stop and turn back to Mondo, once again checking if this really was the correct name. 

Himiko can feel Kokichi tense from next to her. It’s very sudden, happens as soon as that first letter leaves Makoto’s mouth. It’s as if the former supreme leader fully expected his name to be on that last, as if he had been preparing himself for this one, final moment. Himiko wasn’t sure what he had done to even think that was a possibility for him, but found a rather viable reason sitting way forward in the front row. Miu. Miu was on the enforcement team, and hated Kokichi Ouma with a burning passion.

The fear spikes again, and Himiko finds herself almost jolting. As if habitual, the redhead reaches for Kokichi’s hand. Almost desperately. She still stares forward and can not see the former supreme leader as she grasps for his hand, but can feel Kokichi grip her hand tightly back after a beat passes.

Makoto turns back to the mic. He’s certain about the name now. Mondo returns to his place in the front row.

“S-Sorry, I wasn’t sure if--”

There’s no excuse for what he has done, anymore. Nothing he could say that could possibly rectify his next action. Makoto knows that. The rest of the participants know that. His exhale sounds almost like a sigh, but it is pitiful and pained. It’s like it wasn’t even Makoto Naegi, anymore. All Himiko sees when she looks up, desperately grasping Kokichi’s hand, is this hollow man. One who has accepted what he has to do. 

He clears his throat. His finger brushes over the final name, making very sure he knew who he was sentencing to die.

“Kaede Akamatsu?” He announces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 34/40


	40. and i hope you die. (i hope we both die)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :)

Miu’s world seems to stop.

At first she simply doesn’t process it. The name bounces through one ear and out the other, passes through her skull and out of her brain faster than she could intuit it. If Miu were to be entirely honest, she’s been pretty zoned out these past few names. Her mind seemed to have drifted entirely, waiting for this entire ordeal to be over so she could run back to her hotel room and sleep. Shut her eyes and forget this entire day happened. Maybe she would wake up in a cold sweat again like she always used to, with Kaede by her side, waiting for her to get ready so they could go and eat breakfast together. Miu would despise eating breakfast with the rest of her class, but would pull through it with a strong face just so Kaede gives one of those bright smiles at the end of it all to let the inventor know she did an okay job. 

Miu would give anything just to start this day over. Before she slept through the morning, before she yelled at her best friend, before she said stupid things without thinking. She would give her left leg just to blink the past few hours away, to rewind the clock. She has apologies to make. People she needs to forgive.

But as soon as Kaede Akamatsu’s name boomerangs back through her ears and she finally processes just what was said, Miu realises it’s all too late.

It’s a painfully slow reaction. Her entire body stills, sitting in silence, just like the rest of the participants were. It was this unhurried awareness of, “Oh, wait. I recognise that name. I know this person”, until it very painfully morphs into a harrowing realisation. Oh, wait. Miu  _recognises_ that name. She  _ knows _ this person.

Her heart-rate accelerates rapidly. Every part of her was screaming in denial, frantically attempting to correct herself. Maybe she had heard incorrectly. She  _ must _ have, because there is no possible way that Kaede goddamn Akamatsu had just been called. There is absolutely no fucking way. No possible chance in hell. It just doesn’t seem humanly possible for somebody like her to have been on that list. Not Kaede, the first protagonist of Season 53, the optimistic leader who fearlessly leads her class in their time of need, the girl who couldn’t even fucking  _ kill Rantaro correctly.  _

There were countless others that should have taken her place. Kokichi should have been on that list. Korekiyo should have been on that list, or Kirumi or Gonta or Mondo or Sayaka.  _ Miu  _ should have been on that list.  _ Not Kaede. _

Her body begins to react as slowly as her brain does, a stark contrast to her normally quick reaction time. Miu finds herself turning around, neck creaking, her blank stare eventually reaching the back of the room. The inventor is sitting way in the front, expression practically blank. She’s so far away from the action. Everybody around her is looking around, trying to locate Kaede Akamatsu in the crowd. Her fellow enforcement team members were scanning over the crowd, as if they would be able to correctly identify this girl they were searching for. The participants begin to murmur. Nobody was standing up.

Suddenly, Miu blinks. It hits. The horror strikes her all at once.

Kaede is going to die. Kaede is going to die, is going to die, is going to  _ die.  _

“What the--” Miu flips around, staring at the back of the room before turning towards any enforcement team member she could find. “Wh-What the f-- What the  _ fuck!? What the fuck!?” _

“What?” Sayaka whispers loudly. She’s sitting next to the inventor. Kaede’s name must have also been slightly familiar, even if the pop sensation couldn’t exactly put her finger on it. “Miu,  _ what?” _

Miu’s breathing starts to accelerate so rapidly that she was practically hyperventilating. Her eyes looked frenzied as she grips desperately at the back of her chair, tears forming and clouding her vision almost instantaneously. Miu’s head flips around wildly, as if checking if other people were listening to this, if any of this was possibly real. Sayaka extends her arms towards her, ready to stabilise the strawberry blonde, but Miu slaps her hands away tearfully. 

“What the  _ fuck _ is-- Is happening--!? How--!?” She stutters over the growing noise of the crowd. She needs to find Kaede. She  _ needs to find Kaede.  _ “How did this--!?”

Somehow, through this abrupt panic, Miu is able to find Kaede. The former pianist is sitting there, completely frozen. She is frighteningly pale, eyes wide open and unblinking. Horrified. Their entire class was. All of them were deadly silent, moving in slow motion. Nobody was making eye contact with Kaede, mortified of drawing attention to the blonde. 

Kaede looked so scared. She was so  _ scared. _ The sight of the former pianist clashes harshly with the sudden jolt of intense emotions riding up Miu’s spine, so much so that the strawberry blonde bursts into hot, angry tears.

“Is Kaede here?” Makoto asks. He’s worried. There probably isn’t another backup. 

It’s the quietest that Miu has perhaps ever seen Season 53. Many of them are much too shocked to even react verbally, mouths hanging and eyes brutally wide. The others, who have processed the situation, stare forward wordlessly, scrunching in on themselves, attempting to disappear into the crowd around them. Miu can’t stand looking at them. Rage and pure misery slams against the inventor, constricts her throat, the panic flaring tremendously every time her eyes land on another one of her classmates. Angie has her hands folded, raised up to her forehead, eyes closed tightly. Himiko is sobbing, shaking behind Tenko’s arms. Shuichi doesn’t look like he’s breathing. He’s probably not. 

“Who’s Kaede?” Sayaka has to ask, but it’s more pointed towards Akane instead of the frantic inventor.

The gymnast shrugs, also suddenly alarmed by this great reaction from Miu, looking over the crowd from where she stands, “I… don’t know, is that a classmate of her’s?”

Miu ignores their conversation flippantly. Kaede still hasn’t stood up from her chair, and she looks very close to lurching over entirely. The inventor is struck by the sudden temptation to run back there and tell her not to stand, to run or do anything to defend herself, but is just clearheaded enough to realise how absolutely stupid that would be. No matter how much Miu desired to run back and just throw her arms around Kaede, for protection or maybe out of guilt, she knew how much attention would be drawn towards the former pianist if she did so.

“No, that’s not possible,” Sayaka shakes her head in pure denial. “Makoto told me that no kids would--”

“What the  _ fuck!?”  _ Miu interrupts. It’s Mondo she’s talking to, now. Or, at least, she’s yelling in his direction. He’s a blur of color. Barely a person. “When did you--!? Why the  _ f-fuck _ did you put Kaede in there, you  _ absolute idiot!?” _

“What the  _ hell _ are you on about!?” Mondo barks back. The crowd roars around him.  _ “You _ were the one talking about her!”

“Wh--!? Don’t pin this on  _ me! _ I didn’t want--”

The words hitch on her throat as the realisation falls upon Miu. She’s finally processed just who had mentioned Kaede and thrown her name on Makoto’s list. Was it not Miu? Was it not the inventor herself, who had started mindlessly rambling to Mondo earlier that day, painting a dangerously incriminating image of the former pianist in her doltish rage? She’s starting to remember, now. She’s starting to remember the complete lack of filter she had earlier this morning, the safety she felt in that Iris Ballroom and the name  _ “Kaede” _ slipping from her lips much, much faster than her brain could catch up to them. Miu is starting to remember, vividly, excruciatingly clearly, how Mondo had nodded his head and written something in that notepad of is, the same notepad Makoto was holding right now. 

Miu desperately wants to believe it isn’t true. That perhaps she was remembering incorrectly. Maybe Mondo had found some other incriminating evidence that wasn’t Miu’s fault at all. Or maybe Makoto had _read_ incorrectly, maybe Kaede wasn’t even on that list at all. There had to be some sort of explanation that didn’t involve Miu. There had to be something, _anything._ _Anything_ that didn’t involve Miu.

Miu did not just sentence her best friend to die. She did not. She didn’t, she  _ couldn’t have.  _ Miu couldn’t have done that, she couldn’t have been that stupid.  _ Stupid. _ She couldn’t have done that, she couldn’t have done that, she couldn’t have  **_done that._ **

The other members of the enforcement watch Miu turn as pale, her mouth drying. Her frantic questions come to an abrupt stop as she slaps both hands over her mouth. 

“Miu, is she  _ from your class?” _ Sayaka tries to ask. Miu is dead silent. “She’s your friend, right? I’ve seen her before, I’ve definitely seen her before--!”

Miu feels like she’s growing to throw up. Everything is growing distant, foggy. 

“Wait, which one is she?” Akane interrogates, still much, much behind on the conversation.

“The, uh--” Mondo starts to answer, but stops himself. His voice sounds confused, ragged. His eyes lock on the back of the room, at the class of Season 53, before his head snaps towards Makoto. He barely finishes his sentence before stepping back onto the stage. “Hang on.”

Miu feels as if there is nothing to hang on to. Her body is drifting away, aimlessly, yet everything feels incredibly heavy at the same time. Like she was drowning, perhaps. Maybe that was the best way she could describe it. 

Mondo and Makoto start talking to each other again, a secretive, rushed conversation where Makoto holds his hand over the microphone and leans away from it. It wasn’t as if it mattered that much, because the crowd of participants had grown restless and noisy as well, everybody either asking around for Kaede Akamatsu or throwing their incredibly late and incredibly useless protests in Makoto’s direction. Miu can only watch in pure horror, water running slowly down her face.

Makoto turns back to the microphone, now much more desperate,  _ “Is Kaede here?” _

Akane huffs, sick of not knowing what was going on, and stomps forward to find the former pianist, even if it meant reading the nametag of every single participant. Her hand hovers over the labelled handgun.

Knowing that she was being searched for and understanding, deep down, that she is going to be found, Kaede jumps to her feet. Shuichi gasps and tries to stop her, but the former pianist has made herself known much faster than he can grab her.

It’s stupid, of course. But Kaede must have known that sitting down will only delay the inevitable, will only put her own friends at risk. Kaede doesn’t want to put anybody else in danger. Miu can’t help but curse the blonde for not being just a tiny bit more resilient as she stares from afar, shaking from the safety of the front row.

“...You’re Kaede?” Makoto asks. His expression grows wan as he stares at the girl he’s just chosen.

Kaede can’t answer. Her mouth opens and closes for a few seconds, like a fish out of water. Her hand begins to unconsciously rise up her neck, as if reaching for some invisible garrote, her head flipping back and forth between Makoto and a distraught Shuichi. The crowd grows silent, as if the noise had been sucked out of the room. 

“U-Um…” She mouths, voice hoarse. 

There is little pause before she gets interrupted. Maki rushes out, expression ferociously stony as she extends her hand, grabs Kaede’s nametag, and rips it violently off of her chest. As the brunette steps in front of the former pianist, she grabs her own nametag and throws it to the floor.

“I’m Kaede,” Maki announces. 

It’s more snarky than it is factual, as if she knows full well that nobody will actually believe she is the real Kaede Akamatsu. The  _ real _ Kaede Akamatsu was standing behind her, trying to convince herself that this fate of hers was inevitable and to accept it like she had done during that first trial. The blonde’s posture is incredibly stiff, shoulders squared and locked into place. She can do nothing but stare. Maki doesn’t look behind her.

Makoto isn’t an idiot. He catches the lie instantly, but his lips still curl downwards contritely, “You-- You  _ are?” _

Two enforcement team members are already beginning to approach Miu’s classmates, moving towards the pair with incredibly threatening expressions, glaring at the scene beginning to unfold in front of them. Maki does not falter in her stance. Tenko slowly rises to her feet, wobbling slightly. Gonta is already standing. 

Miu watches from afar, hands still firmly planted over her mouth in horror. The enforcement team is getting closer, raring to complete this job before the time limit expires completely. Nobody has made the call to replace this candidate, no matter how many people in the audience gasped or protested, no matter how betrayed Sayaka looked or Miu acted. Maki stares straight forward at Makoto, glaring intensely, stance never breaking. It’s making the Ultimate Hope sweat a little. 

Kaede’s eyes lock onto Miu’s for a second. The inventor drops her hands instantly, mouthing, _“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m_ ** _sorry!”_** over and over until it somehow stuck. There’s no way of telling if anything Miu was mouthing was reaching the pianist. All the inventor could do was pray that any of this was being communicated to the blonde. This might be the last thing she ever gets to tell her best friend, she has to make it count, she _has_ to apologise, _do something._

Kaede barely opens her mouth to answer, whether that response be for Makoto or Miu, before she is fiercely interrupted. Miu turns slightly to the right to discover that Maki has swiped a gun from an enforcement team member. 

It happens incredibly quickly. The two enforcement team members finally reach Miu’s classmates, and with the speed only a trained assassin could muster Maki knees the nearest enforcer and yanks him free of his firearm. Before the other enforcer could even blink, Maki has her new weapon pointed sharply in his direction, her other arm blocking Kaede, shielding her from the enforcement team who were starting to swarm. Maki Harukawa, who has perhaps  _ never _ been anything above neutral towards Kaede, is throwing herself in front of the former pianist, directly in the line of fire, in an act so stupid and selfless that Miu could barely process it. Miu couldn’t imagine acting in a manner that so recklessly put other’s lives in front of her own. Maybe that’s why she’s sitting safely in the front row as her classmates flounder behind her.

The crowd begins to scream again, and Maki finds herself having to shriek in order to make her demands.

_ “Don’t move!” _ She threatens, her gun still pointed at the nearest enforcement member. She’s stepping backwards, taking the mortified Kaede with her and towards the exit. “Anybody who moves, I  _ shoot!” _

Enforcers are drawing their weapons from afar, all of them aimed at the brunette as the rest of the participants duck and scream for cover. Acknowledging that Maki had a very clear blind spot, other enforcement team members begin to approach her from behind, the enforcers near the door looming nearer to break up the situation. Makoto is ad-libbing into the microphone, like his words were any sort of help in that situation, but his demands were swept through the crashing waves of noise. Akane, who would not be able to shoot accurately from that distance, pulls out her handgun anyway. It’s a matter of intimidation.

Miu grabs her arm and tries to push it down. It doesn’t work at all-- Miu is too frail and shaky while Akane holds a pointed determination that the inventor hasn’t seen from her yet-- but it’s the first action that the inventor has taken against Kaede’s death sentence. All Miu has done so far is uselessly push away a gun that wouldn’t have hit her class, anyway. 

Miu turns back to her class. Tenko is standing up now, as well, defending Maki’s blindspot. With great power, she knees an enforcement team member in the gut, shoves them away from Kaede, and then gets socked by the hilt of a gun by another enforcer who approaches much faster than she could react. Gonta picks up a chair and slams it against the man who attacked Tenko. Rantaro sees Gonta pick up a chair and starts to grab for his own. Kaito is throwing punches to save his girlfriend, his ankle obviously in excruciating pain but the adrenaline of the situation further fuelling his punches. Shuichi was helping. Ryoma and Kirumi, just barely standing, were helping.  _ Kokichi  _ was helping. Angie uses her shell necklace as makeshift brass knuckles. Himiko is slashing at people with  _ a deck of fucking cards. _

Miu watches from afar as her entire class throw themselves at the enforcement team with whatever strength they had, kicking and screaming and sobbing. They’ve formed a circle around the former pianist. Miu can see it clearly. They’re all moving slowly towards the exit, shielding Kaede in a disorganised circle. Perhaps every gun in the room is pointed at them, except for the one in Maki’s hands. 

And they’re still fighting. They are  _ all fighting for Kaede.  _

Miu truly feels as if she is choking. There’s a part of her that desires, so terribly, to run forward. To rejoin her class, to stand alongside them. To be selfless and altruistic, to even attempt defending her best friend no matter how truly hopeless it all feels. Miu desperately wants to be a good person, wants so,  _ so desperately  _ to be good. 

But she’s not. But she isn’t. And she doesn’t move, no matter how much she wants to. She’s safer where she stands, she knows that. The logical part of her brain knows that, the part of her that can’t afford to die. She can’t bear to even think about experiencing death again, about greeting that horrible feeling of complete, utter helplessness as she succumbs to the darkness. She doesn’t want to feel pain again, doesn’t want to be touched. So much so that she watches the enforcement team swarm, grow bigger, more threatening.

“She’s the Ultimate Assassin!” Somebody is yelling, with a shaky finger pointed in Maki’s direction. Maki grimaces, but barely shifts in her offensive stance. “She’s an  _ assassin!” _

Now aware of her dangerous talent, the enforcement team grows even more hostile. No longer a “Child Caregiver” in the majority’s eyes, Maki has no choice but to recoil in her attack, backing away even further. The class is beginning to shrink, getting backed into themselves as enforcers attempt to grab at Kaede. Nobody in Miu’s class was about to let that happen, but their defences were growing weaker.

Fear spikes up Miu’s spine once more as one of the enforcers finally manages to grab Maki’s arm. The former assassin puts up a valiant fight with only one of her arms, managing to knock out one enforcer and shove another one back, but eventually she is entirely outnumbered and overpowered. The firearm she had stolen is knocked out of her hands, and the brunette is thrown harshly to the ground. Any classmate that attempts to reach her is forced to move away, either by brute strength or threat of being shot. Kaito is shouting something towards Maki, but nothing he says reaches Miu’s ears. His voice is distant, a whisper underneath the screeches of the crowd. 

An enforcement team member cocks his handgun, aiming the weapon at Maki’s head before she can think to counter with an attack of her own. A gasp rumbles through the crowd.

_ “Maki!” _ Kaito shouts. Miu can finally hear him, as if the volume flipped on for his voice and his voice only. It’s desperate, vulnerable. Reeks with feelings she wasn’t aware Kaito had. 

The enforcer gets ready to shoot, no matter how many people behind him protest. Makoto tries to wave him off but gets nowhere. Miu feels her heart stop. 

But as much as she expects it, no shot rings out. Instead, the only noise that truly brings the fight to a striking halt is that of a young woman’s. 

“Jesus Christ!” She snips. “I get it, I  _ get it!” _

Her voice is catty, like this wasn’t some life-or-death situation as much as it was an incredible inconvenience. She’s 5”7, an inch below Miu, with ratty brown hair and these deep purple eyes that look almost unreal. And for some reason, some  _ stupid _ reason, she’s stepped right in front of Maki. In front of a fucking  _ gun. _

The young woman turns around to face Makoto from where he stands on stage, completely disregarding the former assassin on the floor. With her right hand, she yanks at her face mask and pulls it under her chin. With her left hand, she leans against a cane.

_ “I’m  _ Junko Enoshima. It’s me. I am her,” She declares informally, throwing a lazy hand in the air. “That’s what you wanted to hear, right?”

It is deadly silent. 

All eyes are pinned on Junko Enoshima,  _ the _ Junko Enoshima. 

Miu glances over next to her, turning her head unhurriedly. Sayaka glances at the young woman with her hands clutched tightly against her chest, eyes wide and unclosing, her face running white and chalky in tone. Akane’s expression hardens at the sight of Junko, grip on her handgun tightening, the aim of her weapon slowly moving away from Kaede and towards the Ultimate Despair. They obviously know who she is. 

Miu’s class, who are less aware, if not  _ completely _ unaware, of who this lady is, stare at her with wide eyes and frozen expressions. There is nothing they can do anymore; They’ve fought as hard as they could, and all that is left for them to try is pray and hope that something will happen. That this fashionista, the Ultimate Despair, a  _ villain, _ will somehow save their friend from imminent demise. It sounds silly in theory, absolutely impossible to even dream about. To her class, they needed forty people to sacrifice. There were five people still needed, and that could mean Kaede. 

But to Miu, who knows they only need thirty five-- thirty four, now that one man is dead-- knows that Junko Enoshima might just be Kaede’s only chance. If Junko takes her place, her rightful place, on that list, they might not need Kaede as a backup anymore. Maybe it truly will be okay. Maybe they don’t have to kill Kaede. Maybe Miu didn’t fuck things up so severely that it killed her best friend. Maybe everything is going to be okay, maybe everything is going to  _ be okay. _

It’s an awful situation to feel grateful for, similar to an enemy shooting the soldier behind you rather than at your friend. Kaede gets to live one more day at the cost of another person’s life. 

“I’m coming, just...” Junko continues, casually walking around a confused Maki to approach the stage. Guns are slowly lowered at the sight of her surrender. “...fuckin’ leave them alone. Jesus  _ Christ, _ dude.”

Who the hell is this woman? Miu has never met her formally. She can only assume the absolute worst about her, considering how pale Sayaka had gotten, how embittered Akane had grown, how Makoto’s hands began to shake around his notepad. They’ve met her before, have definitely encountered Junko in an environment that painted the Ultimate Fashionista harshly, in one that left permanent scars both mentally and, for many of them, physically. This isn’t a nice person, and Miu has to keep telling herself that until she feels better about Junko taking Kaede’s place. She has to keep repeating it over and over in her brain until eventually her body forces itself to not feel so overwhelmingly guilty about this swap. 

Was now the time to crumble into a heap in total relief? Miu felt like her knees were about to give out, like she was about to fall to the floor. She’s only staying strong due to the sheer desire to run over to Kaede and give her the biggest embrace humanly imaginable, to blubber out apologies and ask if she was okay, to listen to her and be supportive and be a friend, everything she should have been up to that moment.

So she will glare at Junko like the rest of them. She’ll stay silent, will watch as the fashionista continues to walk forward. As Junko is led to her death, her body tired and her eyes drooping, Miu stays still. Miu will say nothing, just like everybody else in this room. 

“Y-You can sit down now,” Makoto says to Kaede and the rest of Miu’s class. “I’m sorry-- I’m so sorry. For the mishap.”

Miu’s class looks as if they don’t believe it, at first. All of them stare onwards hauntingly, afraid to lower their guards and return to their chairs. Many of them were vibrating in fear, panting at the sheer over-exertion they had just put their bodies through as they fought their hearts out. It is Kaito who makes the first move, dashing as fast he could on a sprained ankle, assisting his stunned girlfriend off of the ground and gesturing her back to their seats. The class slowly follows his lead, none of them breaking eye contact with the enforcement team around them, hesitantly moving back to their seats. Ryoma cradles a newly injured arm. Tenko holds a sleeve over her bleeding nose.

Kaede is gestured to take her seat, but is encouraged by both Shuichi and Angie to sit further down the row, rather on the edge where she had sat before. The former pianist ducks her head, finally allowing herself to exhale, and disappears into the crowd once more. 

Miu is ready to pass out in relief.

Her body isn’t allowing her to believe that anybody is safe just yet. Junko isn’t even backstage, and there are still thirty four people waiting for her that have to be killed before the time limit expires. It’s 10:35. There isn’t much time left. Miu can’t decide whether she’s severely anxious, overwhelmed to the point of nausea, or if she’s tremendously relieved that Kaede has been saved. Because Kaede isn’t  _ truly _ saved, not yet. Not until Plan B is fully enacted.

Makoto flips the notepad closed. The gesture is tiny, but is noticed by practically every participant. It means the list was over, that every name has been called already. A few participants, those who had been keeping count and were waiting for a few more names to be announced in order to make an even forty, look confused. Others noticeably deflate in relief, thanking whatever god was out there that they were still in the audience. Those who were relieved were overpowered by the sheer emotion in the room, those who were crying and sobbing, shouting their grievances at nobody and everybody at all, those who were sitting silently and trying to block out the world. 

Sayaka sits down, practically collapsing into her chair. Akane follows, handgun back in her belt.

Miu falls into her chair so quickly that she practically falls into the pop sensation. The tears have stopped, her mind has quietened, but her body has not stopped vibrating.

“That is all… we needed,” Makoto finally dismisses. “You-- You can return to your rooms now.”

The two enforcement team members that blocked the exit side-step. The door is opened. The participants are free to leave. 

Miu remains in her seat. The enforcement team had to remain in the ballroom, assisting in escorting the participants out of the room, showing little expression as they shout and demand to know what is going to happen to those who were brought backstage.

They know what will happen. They’re not stupid. Miu stays seated.

“It will be okay, please go back to your rooms,” Makoto instructs over the noise, voice practically monotone. “It will be--”

A click. Something fizzles. Makoto’s microphone squeals, before turning silent.

The room plummets into complete darkness. 

Panic ensues, one so great and instant that the inventor is jolted straight up to her feet again. The participants screech at a piercingly high volume, everybody collectively scrambling to reach the exit, tripping over chairs and trampling over people’s feet as they stumble blindly to the doors. Something flicks in everybody’s minds at once, a desperation so great that it destroys any sort of rational segment of their brains. This is their one chance, their only chance, to flee. To escape, to hide. Their survival instincts kick in, the same survival instincts that had led them through countless killing games, as all of them scream for dear mercy, sprint mindlessly in every direction. 

They all desperately want to survive. There is not a single person in that room, Miu reckons, that does not immediately begin fending for their lives, does not act irrationally and stupidly. And when people act irrationally and stupidly, others start to get hurt.

Guns begin going off. It starts from backstage, Miu hears. But one of the enforcers must have thought the gunshot was much closer to them, because they began shooting blindly at the running participants, hoping to shoot anybody within range. Desperately trying to reach that forty person count before the time limit expires. Miu sees flashes of light going off in separate corners of the ballroom. They look like brief sparklers amidst this darkness. Fireflies that die instantly. 

Miu finds herself getting lost in their light. Much too gone to act horrified. 

Somebody grabs the inventor with two hands, gripping Miu tightly.

_ “Maya!” _ Akane’s voice shouts.

“I-I-It’s  _ Miu!!” _ The inventor feels inclined to shout back. She had to shriek just to be heard over the crowd.  _ “How did you find me!?” _

_ “I’m just really  good at finding things for some reason!!”  _ Akane hollers.

Akane wraps her arm around Miu’s shoulder, shoving the inventor’s head down as she begins to escort her towards the door. With almost frightening precision, the gymnast is able to navigate both of them down the middle of the ballroom, holding Miu tighter as they trip around any bodies on the floor (there were way more than one, by now-- Miu was counting), stumbling to the exit and down the hallway. Participants sprint past them, bumping into them, fleeing for their lives.

The inventor is able to fumble for her phone, finally flipping on its flashlight. Akane has led them down a familiar hallway, where only a few participants thought to run through. People run past as Miu flashes her light into Akane’s eyes.

The gymnast was rushing to unclip her handgun again, hands moving so quickly that it slows her down with mistakes.

“What do we-- What do we  _ do!?” _ Miu screams. She hasn’t been given any orders, hasn’t been given any sort of commands or requests. She’s just a teenager, lost in the middle of this massive hotel, waiting for a time limit to expire. 

They have to do something before this time limit expires. Miu doesn’t want to die. Miu doesn’t want to die. Miu wants to  _ live. _

She’s seventeen years old.  _ Miu doesn’t want to die. _

Akane finally gets the gun out of its holster. In a move that was incredibly unexpected, she whips it forward and plants it directly into Miu’s right hand, then grabs at Miu’s left and forces her to hold it tightly.

“Take this, I’ll get another one,” She says quickly. Akane doesn’t make eye contact.

Miu stammers, completely lost. Everything is moving so quickly, “What!?”

“I’ll get another one! You’re in charge of this one, got it?  _ Got it?” _ At Akane’s frighteningly harsh question, Miu nods. The gymnast begins to back away, urgency on her mind. “Anybody you know is bad, Miu--  _ Anybody!  _ You  _ shoot, _ got it!?” __

_ “What do you mean?” _ Miu asks desperately.

“We don’t have any time, we need  _ forty!” _ Akane is already down the hall. She’s throwing words over her shoulder, sprinting towards people and abandoning the teenager.  **_“Anybody,_ ** _ Miu!” _

And she’s gone. And Miu is alone. 

The inventor catches her breath, close to hyperventilating as she stares down at her hands. In her shaking grip is the gymnast’s handgun, labelled very clearly with the name, ‘AKANE’. 

What does she do? She has to make decisions quickly, has to act very,  _ very _ quickly. This is where the irrational side of her brain works best, when everything moves quickly and with a severity so choking and cruel that Miu can barely stand on two feet. This is where she is stupid and rash, where she makes choices that will forever haunt her, for the rest of her life. When time is running out, when she has to move fast. That’s when she makes brainless decisions like creating an entire virtual reality just to murder one of her classmates. Like babbling on to a man she’s known for three whole days, subsequently getting her best friend put on a kill list and nearly  _ slaughtered,  _ putting Kaede in a danger so imminent that the blonde might never be able to forgive her.

Time is running out, and Miu needs to find people. They need to kill thirty five people, they need to act with a speed so quick that nobody can possibly stop to think about the consequences. Miu is focused solely on survival, on self-preserverence. It is growing severely irrational, this paranoia of her’s. If the time limit expires without forty people dead, she is going to die. Miu will die, for sure, unless she completes this count.  _ Now. _

She knows what she has to do. Miu looks down at Akane’s handgun, and knows exactly what she needs to do to guarantee her survival. Because Miu is going to survive. Miu is not going to die here.

And some part of her, some vengeful part of her in the deepest part of her brain, knows exactly who she is going to start looking for.

...Akane did say  _ anybody. _

With hollow determination and little thought to her actions, Miu begins looking for Kokichi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 16/40


	41. (with no consequence, i will do it again.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the confrontation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A NOTE TO WHOMEVER MADE THE TVTROPES PAGE FOR THIS SERIES: I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU. SERIOUSLY THANK YOU <3 <3 HERE IS AN EARLY CHAPTER
> 
> https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/OrDidItEatTheLittleGirl

Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you went in there?

Everybody has done it before. Everybody has walked into an area at one point in their life, perhaps even closing the door behind them, only to realise that they’ve completely forgotten why they had entered the area in the first place. Every trace of memory about their intentions is completely gone. Now they’re just standing, dumbly, in the middle of a room, with no memory of what led to their arrival or any decision that led up to this moment.

Miu couldn’t help but feel the same way. She remembers joining the enforcement team, she remembers the conversation that led to it, but she just can’t remember how she got... _here._

She can’t remember how she got to walking aimlessly down the halls, with no direction in mind yet with all the direction in the world. It’s like a part of her knew exactly where she was going, while the rest of her stumbled mindlessly forward. Miu seems to have forgotten entirely what led up to this moment, what thought process was involved that could have possibly led her down this path. Towards a path that she knows it wrong, towards a decision that will undoubtedly never be erased. Every rational part of her, the part of her that still held _some_ good, just couldn’t understand what led her to this moment. Was there a warning? Was there some kind of sign, anything she could have done differently?

That last question was easily answered. There was much she could have done differently, things she _should_ have done differently. So many brash mistakes, so many selfish and paranoid choices that had led her spiralling down an inescapable rabbit hole. Miu likes to blame others on her faults, she likes to point her finger in every direction that isn’t her own. But deep down, she knows the truth. She knows this was her doing. 

There wasn’t any other way to put it. Miu was not a good person.

There is no turning back now. She’s so far down this path of hers, a path of which she could barely remember the reason for entering it in the first place, to turn back now. To turn back now was to push away her deadly pride, to embrace trust and shove away her selfishness, to throw herself into danger. She’s burned too many bridges to even dream of doing that, now, has pushed too many people away to suddenly break down her walls and ask for help, for forgiveness. It all just seems too irredeemable, too unchangeable. 

Nothing in Miu’s life seemed to be sitting still. She had learned a bit ago, a bit ago in that _fake_ backstory of hers, that expecting anything to remain unchanged was stupid and naive. Everything changes, whether you were ready or not. Whether that includes your relationships, whether that includes your life. Miu had loved the idea of change, had embraced it wholeheartedly, thrown herself in the present by creating wild inventions and acting impulsively, terrified of doing nothing and letting her life slip by. 

But now she sort of wished things would sit still. She longed for the constants, for something stable she could rely on. Miu was never one to rely on anybody but herself. Now it was starting to feel as if she couldn’t rely on that, either.

She looks down at the gun. It’s much too comfortable in her hands, like she had held it millions of times before. Two weeks ago, she would have never expected it to come to this. To come down to her and Kokichi Ouma. Two weeks ago she was Miu Iruma, the loud-mouthed shell of some fan service, the mean, catty, vulgar teenager who sat in front of the television and drunkenly yelled at cartoons, who got on buses impulsively and sat in her seat until they reached the end of the line, who drove her best friend up the walls by making perhaps the stupidest, pettiest, most self-destructive decisions imaginable. Now she was Miu Iruma, the Ultimate Inventor, who was marching coldly down the hallways with a gun in her hands, ready to shoot and murder Kokichi Ouma despite all consequence. 

She supposes there was only one thing still consistent. If she were forced to give Kokichi Ouma any sort of credit, she would have to give it to his unrelenting stubbornness when it comes to pissing her the hell off, everyday, without fail. She was right back then, during that first day, when she had spat that he hadn’t changed at all from the simulator. That he was still this evil, manipulative little prick who used people’s weaknesses against them and drove them fucking insane, seemingly for no good reason other than to pick on them. Miu was always right about Kokichi, and was always right about calling her entire class a bunch of spineless hypocrites who shower the former supreme leader with second chances while she gets cast aside to rot. She knew, all along, that Kokichi Ouma hasn’t changed, that he hasn’t gotten better.

And maybe he was right, too. That first day, during that first argument on the roof. Maybe he was right in saying that Miu was, and always will be, a ‘conniving bitch’. That she, as well as him, hadn’t changed. She was paranoid and only thought about herself, a narcissist. A horrible person.

That’s true, Miu reckons. It’s entirely true.

Because she can’t remember when this drive of hers became less about protecting herself and more about hurting Kokichi.

She’s checking in rooms for him. Miu is not just striding through, not just walking around and hoping that she runs into Kokichi, no. She is _actively_ looking for him, actively hunting down the former supreme leader. 

Occasionally, a few participants run into the hallway she is walking down, before they notice her titanium grip on her firearm and quickly flee in the other direction. Participants part like the Red Sea upon seeing this teenager, quivering in fear, screaming for their lives as they sprint away from her. Miu is somebody that is feared. An enforcer. A beacon of power amongst those who have absolutely nothing. 

Her breathing is heavy, the sound almost annoyingly loud as air leaves through her nose. Miu wants to be stealthier, but her body’s desire to regulate her breathing overpowers that. Despite feeling generally unwell, the gun is still held firmly in her grasp, held with a pointedness that makes her look like a professional. Miu has never held a gun before all of this. At least, not one that was meant to kill people. 

She’s reached the kitchen. Following routine, Miu ducks inside to check for Kokichi.

Red lights were blinking within the room, emergency lights that went off if the power were to shut off unexpectedly. It was a dimly lit room, one that sent shivers spiking up Miu’s spine with how desolate it looked, with how grim the atmosphere appeared. The pot and pans had been stored long ago, leaving one metal bowl resting on an iron table. The piece of wood that had held the kitchen knives and the drawer containing backups of these kitchen utensils have been emptied, whether the enforcement team took them for safekeeping or frenzied participants grabbed them for self defence.

It is soul-suckingly quiet. Miu could drop a pin on the ground and it would sound like an earthquake.

Too quiet. 

Instinctively, she flips her head to look behind her and immediately hisses through her teeth. She doesn’t have to do that anymore, yet her body was trained to double-check, anyways. It was too silent to be a completely empty room. Hairs started to raise at the back of her neck, her mind detecting some sort of presence despite seeing nobody there. Despite hearing nothing at all. Miu’s paranoia seems to be heightening her awareness, even if it meant jumping to conclusions on whether or not other people were in the room with her.

She cocks her gun. It’s in warning, a threat to anybody who might try to sneak up on her.

“I know you’re in here,” Miu declares, despite not knowing if it was true or not. She grimaces at how obviously nervous her voice sounds.

Silence. Miu inhales and holds her breath, locking her knees and elbows, gun pointed sharply at the floor and ready to aim. Moments pass where she remains frighteningly still. Every beat that passes further solidifies this rather impulsive conclusion of hers that somebody was there with her. Somebody is in there with her. 

To prove this conclusion correct, a shadow suddenly jolts forward, startling the inventor out of her mind. Faster than she could blink, the shadow grabs for the large metal bowl on the table, throws it at Miu like a frisbee, and makes a break for it towards the exit behind her. Miu, who misses the metal bowl by mere inches, has only seconds to collect her breath and quickly aim her gun at the figure attempting to escape. The shadow has their hand on the doorknob. They were so close to escaping.

“Don’t move! D-Don’t fucking move!” Miu orders, gun aimed viciously at them.

The figure freezes, watching their only chance of escape slip through their fingers. His long, exaggerated sigh is much too familiar.

It’s Kokichi.

“Get away from the door,” Miu further instructs. Her voice wavers, no matter how much she tries to act powerful. With the barrel of her firearm still aimed at the former supreme leader’s head, she coldly gestures to the right with her gun. “Move.”

Kokichi spins on his heel, smile sarcastic and incredibly flippant for the situation at hand. His grin is so wide that Miu is instantly chilled by it. Everything about his expression implied that he was about to take Miu’s instruction to “move” and take the absolute piss out of it by breaking into song and dance. Nothing about Kokichi even hinted at possible fear, even with imminent death rushing at him.

Kokichi shuffles away from the door, never breaking eye contact with Miu. The inventor couldn’t help but feel unnerved as they circled each other, circled around one of the iron counters, until the former supreme leader was across the room from the exit. Miu blocks it vehemently. 

Kokichi titters under his breath, raising his hands in playful surrender. Miu quickly scans him over. He’s unarmed. She is not.

“Well, well, well!” He chuckles darkly, his crocodile grin spreading up to his ears. “We meet again! To speak my truth, I can’t help but feel intense déjà vu… do you feel that, as well? This all seems so familiar, but I just can’t… put my finger on it…”

“Shut up!” Miu bites back. She’s rocking between both feet. _“Shut up,_ I-I have to do this.”

She’s not sure why she said that. Miu knows Kokichi is no fool; As soon as he noticed the inventor walking into the same room as him he must have put two and two together and realized she was about to kill him. In her eyes, he was the perfect candidate to be one of the forty sacrifices, and she’s been given every permission to simply aim her gun at his head and shoot it. Yet Miu still felt this _excuse_ slip through her lips before she could stop herself, vulnerability escaping her mouth faster than she could put up an act of strength. 

There’s a pause that passes through the both of them. Kokichi waits, eye contact never breaking, his expression rather nonchalant as he waits for the trigger to be pulled. Miu shrinks at how casual he was acting, a stark contrast to her weak demeanour. He was _right there,_ Miu. She should be pulling the trigger. That’s one more person to add to the count, one less issue she has to deal with. One more death closer to total protection, to get rid of any possibility of the time limit killing her once it expires. 

It should be so easy, right? It should be so easy. All she has to do is pull the trigger and shoot, yet she finds herself overthinking. It’s just like that dreaded day in the simulator, that damn confrontation with Kokichi on the roof. She had every opportunity to kill him. Her mind was so clear up until the moment it had to be. When she’s desperately in need of her brash decisiveness, she’s suddenly unable to make choices. Her mind turns foggy, crowded. 

Kokichi’s head tilts to the side condescendingly. Miu should have shot him right there, but still finds herself freezing.

“Well?” He chirps silently. “...Any day, now, Iruma--”

“Shut the fuck up, I-I’ll _kill you!”_ She sounds fucking pathetic. “Just-- Just-- Stop _talking!!”_

“I’m not saying anything. To speak my truth, I’m just waiting.”

Miu hated how acidic his words sounded, how slowly he was considering his next sentences, _“Shut up!!_ Don’t-- God… _damnit!”_

Her aim wavers for a brief moment as she groans to herself, but Kokichi doesn’t even take the chance to escape. He just stands there with that same, stupid smile on his face as she stammers and falters. It’s almost as if he knew that she would do this, would hesitate and stall for time as soon as she actually needed to kill somebody. Miu _despised_ how well he knew her. _Loathed_ how easily he was able to read her every move.

She just wanted to pull this fucking trigger. Was that too much to ask? Was that too much to ask her body to do?

Realising her aim had drifted with her internal battle, she quickly points it back at Kokichi’s forehead. The former supreme leader doesn’t even blink.

“Was it you??” She accuses. “Y-You took my laptop, right!?”

She needs something to convince her further that pulling this trigger was the right thing to do. Miu doesn’t have an excuse like she did back in the simulator, didn’t have “the greater good” to blame her selfish actions on, anymore. So, sure. Miu will pull the whole laptop situation back out of her ass again.

“Yeah, sure,” Kokichi shrugs. Miu’s face twitches at his nonchalance. “I took it. Gave it to some rando. It was a whole thing.”

“A-A whole--”

“Soooooo, are you going to shoot me, or what?” The former supreme leader asks, hands dropping lazily to his sides. “Or do you need more excuse to kill me?”

 _“Stop it!”_ Miu barks. Kokichi’s hands shoot up in surrender again, almost like he was playing along cheekily while she was on the brink of hyperventilating. Miu once again wavers in her aim to put her head in both hands, nearly smacking her own forehead. “I can’t-- I can’t fucking _monologue,_ again, I-I’m doing the _exact same thing I did last time--”_

“You’re right! You shouldn’t monologue!” Kokichi agrees. “Otherwise Gonta will get you like he did last time! Right, Gonta?”

As he mentions Gonta’s name, the former supreme leader looks over Miu’s shoulder. The inventor, in her frenzied daze, turns around momentarily to check if Gonta had somehow gotten into the kitchen. The former entomologist was nowhere to be found. Miu flips back to Kokichi and readjusts her aim.

 _“Fuck you!”_ She hisses with little power.

“God, you’re so easy to trick!” Kokichi giggles. “Just shoot and get it over with! Super duper easy!”

The inventor grits her teeth so roughly that she might have chipped a tooth, “Shut up, shut up, _shut up--”_

“As much as it’s _super fun_ to watch you battle with your morality, I’ve got places to be! So, if you’d be so kind as to simply pull the trigger, I’ll be on my wa--”

 _“You_ have been nothing but a _menace to me_ this entire convention-- A-A-And you’re sitting here, _mocking me,_ l-like I’m _not_ going to pull this trigger--!?”

“I’m not mocking you,” Kokichi says underneath her ranting.

Miu continues without stopping, “I-I don’t understand why you chose _me specifically to torment._ E-Every day with _you_ here has been a _goddamn nightmare--_ A-And it’s-- I know you think I’m _fun_ to annoy or I give you some _entertaining reaction,_ but you were goddamn _insufferable to me!_ I-I-I don’t understand why! I don’t understand why you can’t just let it--” 

“Because you were always going to do this,” Kokichi answers pointedly.

“--Go, and…” His words start to seep in fully, catching Miu’s train of thought before it continues. “....Huh?”

Kokichi shrugs again. Nothing about his expression has changed in the slightest, not even as Miu waves her firearm at him and continuously threatens to pull the trigger at him. It was like she wasn’t holding any sort of weapon at all, like she wasn’t even there. He held an arrogance in his grin that made Miu feel small in comparison, despite obviously being able to overpower him.

“You were always going to do this,” He repeats, nodding formally. Kokichi presents this opinion as if it was a statement of fact. “You were always going to kill somebody.”

Miu’s entire face scrunches as if she had smelled something foul, “Wh-What do you--”

“--And I don’t blame you, heehee! You’re in a killing game where the rules are less strict and there’s no punishment for killing anymore!” Kokichi bounces on his heels. “Of course _you’d_ want to kill somebody.”

“You _bitch,”_ Miu hisses, gun trembling in her hands. “I never wanted--”

Kokichi wouldn’t stop talking, “It’s psychology! Your brain tries to justify these murderous thoughts of yours by finding something _else_ to blame. And if that means acting on a grudge, then that means acting on a grudge! And it was definitely going to be something _small_ like that for you, because you can’t pull some bullshit excuse like _saving the world_ out of your ass--”

“W-W-Well, I--! Shut up, I-I-I thought--! At least I wanted to--!

“Oh, come on. As soon as that announcement went off and the killing game began, you were just _raring_ to kill somebody, hm? Our class is too nice to confront you about it. Kaede was all like, _‘We have to believe in her, guys!’, ‘Miu would never do anything like that, boo hoo hoo!’_ Pretty awful to think all of that faith in her ‘best friend’ led to you nearly killing her… Sad!”

Miu _hated_ how he said the word ‘our’. _‘Our class’._ She despised thinking about the two of them being from the exact same season, from the same group of people. And she _despised_ how Kokichi was mocking Kaede, somebody who had apparently been trying to defend the inventor from the very beginning. Miu didn’t need the reminder of what she had just done to the blonde, of what she had just put her best friend through. She couldn’t bear to listen to it. Miu had nearly gotten Kaede _killed,_ had nearly gotten her brutally murdered, all because she couldn’t keep her goddamn mouth closed.

Miu just wanted Kokichi to shut up, to stop talking, to stop shouting lies and picking apart every fucking insecurity she has. She shouldn’t be standing there and taking it. She should be showing him who’s boss, shouting at him and letting the former supreme leader know that she wasn’t going to take his shit anymore. But all that she does is choke on her words. Fumble with her grip. 

Miu can’t afford to hesitate this time. She can’t make the same mistakes. She can’t make the same mistakes like she did in the simulator.

“I wasn’t…” She tries to say, but it gets caught in her throat. She sounds weak. Miu is not _weak._ “That’s not _true.”_

“Let’s not kid ourselves, shall we? It was always going to happen,” Kokichi drawls, raising a sardonic eyebrow. It quickly snaps back to his typical, grinning expression. “And since you were always going to kill someone… I had to make sure it was me, nishishi~!”

The gun that was trained against Kokichi’s head begins to unconsciously lower. Miu makes eye contact so direct that it blocks out every other one of her senses, her eyes training themselves against Kokichi’s purple irises. He was still smiling. Even as Miu freezes in disbelief, wilting in her spot, Kokichi Ouma was still fucking _smiling._

“Well? What about it, Iruma? That’s my evil plan!” Kokichi sings, his shoulders bouncing in a facetious delight as he elaborates on this ‘plan’ of his. “Make you hate me so much that you can’t even _think_ about hurting the others! And it totally worked, didn’t it? Didn’t it? Didn’t it?”

“You know what _I_ think?” Miu growls in a low tone, words sharp. “I think you’ve been too much of a _pussy_ to admit that your personality is complete and utter _shit,_ so you’re shoving all of the fucking blame onto me!! You’re just _begging_ for some excuse to justify how much of a goddamn piece of crap you _really_ are, huh?”

Kokichi’s smug expression begins to slowly fall, his grin morphing into a frown. Miu raises her nose at him arrogantly, but her smile is twitching on her lips.

“Hah! F-Fucking _got you,_ huh? Y-You’re not the _only one_ who can read people, you overgrown _wart!”_ Miu’s voice isn’t loud. It’s simply accusatory, her words as biting as she could muster with her trembling tone. Kokichi doesn’t answer. “How about it, am I right? ‘You blaming everything on everybody else, you little shit?”

“...Are you speaking from personal experience?” Kokichi practically mutters under his breath.

Miu’s nostrils flare, “Fuck you.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“You can’t-- You can’t spin this around to make _me_ the bad guy, here,” She spits. “I-I-I’m not as-- Not as shitty as you are--!”

Kokichi raises his shoulders briefly, “I know. Why are you--”

“And why did you keep dragging Gonta around, huh!? S-Since you were _so worried_ about our class a-a-and-- Tell me that! Tell me _why,_ b-before I fucking--”

“I _wasn’t_ dragging him around!” Kokichi defends. It’s the first time his volume grows above speaking volume. “He was dragging _me_ fucking around! _To speak my truth,_ he kept coming up to me and saying that we should all _apologise,_ and be all _buddy-buddy,_ but then he kept second guessing himself, so I--” To Miu’s surprise, Kokichi finds himself stumbling. He has to inhale for a beat. It was almost like he was catching his breath. “So I just--”

“Well, I didn’t want to see _either_ of you! _E-Especially_ you!” Miu growls, raising her raise again to meet Kokichi’s volume. The distance between the barrel of Miu’s gun and the former supreme leader’s forehead is beginning to grow smaller, so small, in fact, that the purple teen has to step backwards.

“Why!? Why _especially_ me!?” Any sign of genuine anger is quickly hidden but an onslaught of crocodile tears. Kokichi starts pouting, making Miu’s eyebrows furrow even further. “Why do you hate me so _muu-uuu-uuch??_ It’s not like I was the one who _killed you--!”_

“Because _you’re_ the one I saw! _You’re_ the one who stood in front of me, you’re the _last thing I fucking saw,_ a-a-and you expect me _not_ to be scared of you!?”

She wasn’t supposed to say that. Miu is talking, babbling without thought. Stalling. Allowing Kokichi to hear every single weakness and every single flaw while she gets nothing in return. 

The grip on her gun is perhaps the roughest it has ever been, her grasp so tight against her weapon that it would be humanly impossible for anybody to rip it out of her hands. Despite her titanium grip, the firearm vibrates in her hands as it points at Kokichi. The former supreme leader is able to see, clearly, her trembling hesitation, the way her lower lip wobbles with sobs that are threatening to spill over. The way her eyes were beginning to grow glassy, only barely blinked away and kept at bay. 

“You have spent this _entire_ convention harassing me and making _sure_ that I don’t forget what I’ve done. What I did in that stupid killing game,” There’s something menacing in her voice, something so haunting about the contrast in her normally loud and brassy tone to this low, calculated speech she was giving, now. “You have reminded me of it every day since I’ve got here-- Have not let me _sleep_ without reminding me of what I had to do in that simulator. But-- But you know what’s so funny about it all?”

She waves her gun in Kokichi’s face, expecting an answer. The former supreme leader remains silent, lips pressed into a thin, horizontal line.

“The funny thing is-- The funny thing is, that after you-- You _bully_ me, you get to go back to your _friends_ and _none_ of them give you any shit for it--!”

“You think they let me off _that_ easy--!?” Kokichi tries to interrupt.

“Kaede _knows_ I’m a shitty person. F-Fuck, even _she’s_ scared of me!!” Somewhere in that statement, Miu’s voice finally breaks. It grows high, the kind of high that only arrives whenever she’s emotional and upset. Water is running down her face but she’s too prideful to wipe them away. _“But everybody fucking forgives you!?_ I’ve got **_nobody,_** but everybody just _flocks_ to your fucking side like you _never even killed me…!?”_

“You wanna know why you’re so lonely, Iruma? May I speak my truth!?” His tone is incredibly biting. Nothing there implies falsity. He was genuinely angry at the accusation. “It’s because you keep shoving _everybody_ away--!”

“ _You_ do the same goddamn thing!! But everybody thinks it’s _endearing,_ or some shit!!”

“Oh, hoh hoh! At least I didn’t get my friend on a goddamn _kill list--!”_

“S-See!? This is what I’m talking about!” Miu is full on crying now. There’s no stopping. Participants screech in the background, muffled and desperate. “You have the _audacity_ to get in my face every time we see each other and tell me I’m a terrible person! Don’t you think I fucking know that!? Do you think I’m _that awful_ of a person that I don’t regret that stupid killing game _every goddamn day of my life!? That I don’t regret anything!?”_

Kokichi is silent. His mouth twitches like he wants to say something, but his lips are sealed tightly closed. Miu scoffs, the sound watery and pitiful.

“Do you even regret it?” She asks. It’s a serious question, however amplified by the gun she was pointing at his forehead. Miu sounded uncharacteristically calm. “You did this to me. _You_ made me like this. _I_ wanted to make friends and be happy like you are, but _you--”_

“You think I’m happy?” Kokichi asks, also phrasing it as a genuine question.

Miu, who had expected Kokichi to call her out for shoving her problems onto another person again, hesitates. She can’t let any of his mind tricks get to her more than it already was. God, Miu should have been done with this ages ago. She was chickening out of something should have been _so simple._ She just had to close her eyes, hold her breath, pull the trigger--

“Aren’t you?” She spits.

Kokichi once again shrugs. He’s been giving a lot of vague answers, Miu realises, “To speak my truth?”

“T-To speak _my_ truth, kiss my ass.”

“Teehee! The exercise doesn’t work like that, silly--”

“I can’t even _imagine_ being-- being fully happy again,” Miu hisses. Her eyes narrow until she’s glaring at him completely, tears still running down her face and words breathy. Kokichi silences once more. “Or even completely safe. I’m always so scared of _everything,_ I-I-I haven’t slept in _so goddamn long…!”_

The former supreme leader’s gaze falls towards his feet. Instead of guilt, his expression twists into one of pensiveness. Miu has to take a few deep breaths, steadying herself to finally go through with this decision of hers. Every inhale is thin, every exhale sounding almost pained.

“S-So-- So, I’m gonna kill you now,” Miu has to declare. It’s more to assure herself than it was to warn Kokichi. There is nothing convincing about her tone of voice, anymore. “A-And there’s nothing you can do about it--”

“You don’t want to do this,” Kokichi says. It’s a guess.

“I _do!_ Yes, I do…! You said it-- You said it yourself, I’ve always wanted to kill _you specifically--”_

“Then do it, Miu. Seriously,” Kokichi challenges. “What’s taking so long? Why are you hesitating, Miu?”

Why are you hesitating, Miu? 

This was her big moment. This is what she wanted. This is what she wanted, right? Ever since she was choked to death painfully in that simulator, she’s wanted revenge on Kokichi. Every time she would wake up in the middle of the night screeching, grasping desperately at her neck, hyperventilating herself into unconsciousness or at least until she grew too tired to move, she wanted revenge on Kokichi. Every time she watched her death on screen, every time her name was mentioned in a social media post, every time her murder was brought up in passing conversation. Every time she would refuse to leave a bus, hoping she could just run away from her entire life without consequence. Every time she would drink and then blackout and then wake up in some random location. Every time she would take her meds in the morning, every time she would stay up late at night. She wanted revenge on Kokichi Ouma. She blamed him for _everything._

So why was this so hard? Miu should have learned from last time, being in that simulator. She should have grown stronger, been stronger. If she was going to repeat her past mistakes, she should have at least _improved_ on them. 

There was no turning back, now. How mortifying would it be to go back to her class, only for Kokichi to run up and tell everybody that she had tried to kill him? _Again?_ She can’t go back, she can’t rewind. She’s burned every bridge, she’s severed every relationship. Miu has nobody. Miu has _nobody._ Nobody, nobody, nobody nobody nobody nobody _nobody nobody_ **_nobody._ **

Miu Iruma has nowhere to go from here.

The inventor lets a sob slip from her mouth. Hearing it, she immediately grimaces at herself. 

_“Shit!”_ She curses, kicking the table next to her as the gun falls to her side.

She’s so alone. Miu can’t do anything right. She can’t do anything right and she’s a terrible person and she’s so, so lonely. She can’t even bear to shoot her worst enemy, can’t even manage to kill the boy who has tormented her since day one. How has the rest of the enforcement team done it? Why is she even on that team if she can’t hurt anybody? She’s a horrible person who can’t even be useful. The enforcement team is going to hate her. Miu has sunk so low that she is begging for the enforcement team, for a group of people who have slaughtered countless people already, to see her as anything but a nuisance. She’s starting to think, after this entire fucking conundrum with the forty person list and Kaede being on there, that she can’t even trust _them_ anymore. Not even Akane, not even Sayaka. She can’t trust anybody.

Would Kaede ever forgive her? Could Miu even begin to dream of finding forgiveness from her best friend? She just wants to be friends with Kaede again. She just wants to feel safe again.

Why does she want to hurt people? What is she doing?

How did she get here?

“God… _damnit!”_ She’s barely even talking to Kokichi, anymore. She covers her eyes, rubbing at them furiously until she can see stars from behind her eyelids. Kokichi had every opportunity to take this chance and run for the exit, but the former supreme leader wasn’t moving. He just _wasn’t going anywhere._ “Why can’t I…? Why am I…?”

Kokichi tilts his head, “Hey… Can I speak one final truth?”

“Why can’t I do-- Anything…? Anything _right…?”_

“You’re scaring me a bit.”

Miu looks up at him slowly, choking back any cries behind sealed lips. Kokichi looks back, his eyes blank. His expression was entirely unreadable, hollow. She can’t place why exactly he said that. Was it simply fact? Was he rubbing this fight with morality of hers back in her face? Was he trying to earn mercy?

It doesn’t seem to matter, anymore. Miu was tired. Her entire body felt heavy, her legs weak and barely holding her up.

She weakly lifts her gun back up to face the former supreme leader again, allowing her finger to brush past the trigger a few more times. Kokichi watches as it happens, expression unmoving. Miu couldn’t imagine feeling such apathy, being able to switch off any signs of fear so formally. So neatly. He managed to switch off his emotions so professionally. 

The inventor can feel her grip against the gun growing weaker.

“...Why am I doing this...?” Miu asks.

She wants an answer but receives none.

Kokichi smiles sadly. A beat passes. He was probably thinking of something to say. Maybe he was actually trying to respond to her. Maybe, for a moment, Kokichi was attempting to answer this question seriously, giving Miu a reasonable explanation to her troubles. Nothing of the sort escapes his mouth, even if he had managed to come up with something. Any psychological evaluation is pushed away as he diverts his attention towards piecing together some sort of joke answer. Miu shouldn’t have expected much from him. She was a fool to think she would receive any kind of comfort in his honesty.

As soon as Kokichi does come up with something, his expression falls dramatically into an over-exaggerated sad expression. He throws his arms to his side like a pouty child.

“Because you hate meeee!!” He wails, overselling it entirely. “So _mean,_ Miu! I’m so sick and tired of facing the consequences of my own _actiooonss!_ You’re such a _meanie,_ coming at me with a gun like that! I can’t believe you think so poorly of me that you’d want to kill me _agaaiiiiinnn!”_ His lower lip wobbles. A tear runs down his cheek. “I-I can’t believe that I made you hate me so… so…”

His words suddenly trail. He seems to stammer for a second. 

Kokichi’s over-exaggerated expression subdues immediately as he raises a hand up to his cheek. Dabbing his fingers gently against his face and then drawing them back to observe them, his eyebrows furrow. Left on the tips of his fingers was the tear that had rolled down his cheek, a tear that had formed abruptly in the middle of his fake pouting. He stared at the water as if it was the most foreign thing in the world to him.

His voice was growing higher, emitting a genuine emotion that Miu had never heard from him before. “Why am I…?”

Abruptly, both of Kokichi’s hands shoot to his cheeks. They were both soaked with tears that were now beginning to fall at a much more rapid speed. Miu had assumed they were fake, like all of his usual tears were, but she was starting to notice how heavily they flooded from his eyes. Kokichi kept wiping at his cheeks and looking at his hands in genuine confusion, a confusion so authentic and profane that it was almost funny seeing it from Kokichi, but the streaks of tears continued to replace themselves. The former supreme leader was staring down at his own hands with a curiosity that was real, water continuing to flood down his face and to the ground. 

Without looking up from his wet hands, Kokichi stared with wide, baffled eyes. Miu glares at him, frowning, gun shaking at her side. She knows that now was the perfect moment to catch him off guard, but she’s much too tired to even try, at this point. She gives up. She gives up.

Kokichi smiles. There’s nothing evil about it, anymore.

“Why can’t I…?” His voice sounded broken, entirely shattered. His grin is twitching on his lips. It looks like it hurts. 

Miu can feel her grip fading. Kokichi looks up from his hands to meet the inventor’s eyes with his own. He looks sad.

Kokichi Ouma looks genuinely sad.

“Why can’t I… stop _crying…?”_ He asks.

And like that, it’s over. The gun slips from Miu’s hands and her knees buckle entirely. 

If this was a part of his plan, it worked. If this was some sort of elaborate mind trick by Kokichi, it worked. Miu is tired. She’s too exhausted, now. She doesn’t care anymore, doesn’t care if he was faking this entire pity fest just to get her to quit. If Kokichi runs, it wouldn’t matter. If Kokichi grabs the gun and shoots her, it wouldn’t matter. 

Sadness comes rushing at her in waves, escaping through loud wails and anguished, fatigued sobs. She cries and cries until there is nothing powerful about her left, until she’s only a kid, sitting on the kitchen floor, howling at nothing and everything at the same time. Her shoulder’s were jolting violently, her stomach beginning to hurt with how merciless her sobs were. Everything hurts. She’s just too tired to care.

Miu spends a minute on that floor by herself, laying there helplessly, until eventually Kokichi collapses, too. All the formal inventor could do was hope and pray that nobody could hear either of them crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1/40


	42. solemnly swear to tell the whole truth?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a conversation in the vents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fellas we have OFFICIALLY reached the length of the last story at 42 chapters !! this story will never end and you will never be rid of it

10:50 PM. Breathe, Himiko.  _ Breathe. _

It was hard to find much air in the vents. That’s something she is starting to realise much, much too quickly. Normally her claustrophobia was easily pushed aside by civil conversation with Korekiyo, making it a bit easier to inhale and exhale in a steady rhythm. 

But now, as not two, but  _ four _ people share the same vent space, it was beginning to feel like there was barely any air. All of it was being shared amongst Korekiyo, Tenko, and Angie. 

Korekiyo, who had previously been the sole occupant of the vent system, had been shoved way down to the side. He was practically a foot away from Himiko, curled into himself, yellow eyes staring pointedly at the floor and absolutely nowhere else. Himiko sat rigidly in between him and Tenko, the bridge between the pair, tears and snot running down her face pathetically. The former aikido master next to her had her knees tucked under her chin, covering her bleeding nose with her thin sleeve, eyes drilling holes into the phone in her hands with feverous desperation. Angie was closest to the grate, and has kept her head turned towards the exit this entire time. Not allowing anybody else in the vent to see her expression. It was a rather eerie dismissal of the other three occupants. 

Hiding in the vents was a really good idea in theory. The lights went out immediately, and Himiko (she reckons she’s pretty good at navigating through the dark-- especially because she’s so close to the ground) grabbed Angie and Tenko with a certainty that was quite frightening to the former mage, practically dragging them out of the ballroom. Finding the vents again felt like muscle memory at that point. Korekiyo hadn’t been found, so the vents seemed like an incredibly safe option.

In practice, however, dragging Tenko and Angie into the same vent was perhaps the worst thing she could have done.

The overwhelming tension was similar to a volcano ready to erupt, a stick of dynamite that only needed a simple spark before it exploded entirely. It was almost as if nobody was allowed to complain about the circumstances they were in, in fear of starting a discussion that will inevitably lead to talk of the killing game, of what Korekiyo had done. Of how Himiko knew he was in here. An elaboration of what Himiko has been doing with the former anthropologist. None of it seemed appealing to talk about, especially not as participants screamed and shrieked as an accompaniment. Now was not the time nor the place to resurface past mistakes, to address the elephant in the room. Himiko is more than willing to let that elephant rot and die. 

There was too much to think about, truly. Too much happening at once. What was happening? Why was this happening? When will it end? Why was Kaede’s name called, why did Junko step forward? Is this adolescent immunity of theirs finally over? Have the participants reached such desperation that now absolutely anybody was on the table? As Himiko stopped to listen, it seemed very much to be the truth. Panic-stricken participants screeched down the halls, ducking for cover, running for their lives. The more Himiko sat and did nothing, the more her mind zoned out in self-defence, the more that screaming began to sound like her friends. It was like her brain was attempting to trick her, beckoning to run out of those vents, scolding her for being selfish. She should be finding her class, moving them to a safer location. Who knows where anybody is?

So many thoughts and problems and issues and conflicts and horrid ideas that rack against her body so harshly that she just wants to scream, to hit herself in the head, to punch the vent walls and throw a fit. But still, she stays silent, too terrified to move and too tired to act out.

Too tired. It’s all growing so…  _ repetitive. _

Tenko sniffs loudly. Her right hand types awkwardly at her phone while her left hand anxiously taps against her shoulder. Nobody was willing to ask Tenko what she was doing, as none of them wanted to talk first. Talking first to Himiko was equivalent to her willingly subjecting herself to scrutiny, starting the conversation that none of them wanted to have at that moment.

But Himiko was more worried about her than some stupid argument.

“...You okay?” She whispers, words slurred and warbled. Shockingly, it’s not as frightened as she could have sounded.

Tenko just stares down. Her gaze is firmly planted on her phone, almost terrified to look up from it. There’s bruising beginning to form around the bridge of her nose. Tears that have stained her face have seemingly dried, instead manifesting into a terrified anger, a rage fuelled much more by horror than it was fuelled by any kind of hatred. The answer to Himiko’s question was very, very obvious. Of course not. Who could possibly be okay in a situation like this? What sort of apathetic person would you have to be to not feel hysterical?

“I don’t like this,” Is Tenko’s answer. Her voice is frail. Monotone. 

It was a small space. Dark. Korekiyo resided about a foot away. Quite literally any of those could have incited bad memories. Not only was the outside a place of terror and completely desolate of hope, but the inside was filled with just as much terror, even if it only took the form of unpleasant memories. It was like a choice for them: face the past or face the present. If Himiko could choose neither, she would.

The redhead very stiffly adjusts herself, turning herself around so that her back leaned against the same wall as Tenko’s did. Timidly, she leans against the former aikido master’s shoulder, curling into her girlfriend as much as she possibly could. Tenko responds by leaning into the redhead, but her attention is not drawn from the phone in front of her. She’s texting the class.

It seems nobody has responded to her in a while. 

“It’ll be fine…” Himiko whispers. It’s a promise she can’t keep, but she’ll say it anyways.  _ One _ of them has to be the hopeless optimist. “...W-We’ll wait just a bit longer.”

Korekiyo seems to have scooted away even further. Himiko wouldn’t be able to reach him if she extended her arm.

In a way, she felt bad. She had just intruded in his hiding spot, dragging along perhaps the last two people he’d want to see right now. Permission had been granted a while ago if Himiko ever needed to run to the vents, and Korekiyo  _ had _ made it clear that she was welcome to bring Tenko and Angie even if it made the situation infinitely more tense than it already was, but Himiko still couldn’t help but feel icky. It was a general feeling of nausea over the situation as a whole, a heaviness that made her want to throw up. 

“We have about nine minutes left.”

It’s Korekiyo, very surprisingly. Following Himiko’s cautious lead, he very timidly continues the conversation with any information he could convey. In this case, it’s the time that he had acquired with a quick glimpse at his watch. Any eye contact he makes is directed at the redhead only, as he was probably aware that making eye contact with the seething Tenko is a recipe for disaster. Himiko looks back, a lot more confident in her gaze, in some attempt at letting him know he was free to talk. 

“Regrettably, I haven’t been keeping count of the shots,” He continues, not whispering but certainly not speaking at his regular volume. “If we have already passed forty, I’m not entirely sure wha--”

“Shut up,” Tenko abruptly hisses.

_ “Hey,” _ Himiko warns.

“...I was simply making an observation,” Korekiyo defends, eyes narrowing but his gaze still shifting back and forth.

“Well, _ I don’t want to hear it,” _ Tenko whispers harshly back. Her voice is muffled by her sleeve.

“Could we… maybe…  _ not…?” _ Himiko awkwardly tries to negotiate, beginning to raise her arms to create some kind of barrier between the two. Tenko practically snarls at the former anthropologist, her eyes glaring into his skull. Korekiyo’s visible facial expression hardens, but there’s a clear guilt behind any sort of defensive stance he’s taking.

“Could this degenerate maybe... not...  _ be here?” _ The former aikido master hisses, continuing her petty stare in Korekiyo’s direction.

“He was here first… I’m not gonna kick him out of his own hiding spot, babe.”

“Fine, then.  _ I will--!” _

With a sudden protectiveness, and probably some leftover adrenaline from her defending Kaede earlier, Tenko lunges at the former anthropologist sharply. Himiko has mere seconds to block her with her full body, placing herself between her girlfriend and Korekiyo with much-louder-than-comfort yells of, _“Hey! Hey!_ ** _Hey!!”_** It just barely works, but it takes another shove (seeming as Himiko had little strength, it was more of a statement than anything) for Tenko to finally sit back down again with a disgruntled huff. Korekiyo has flinched his way even further down the vent system.

Tenko returns to her seated position. This time, her knees and sleeves do not hide her new injury, with fresh blood running straight from her nose and down her chin. With the absolute death stare she was giving Korekiyo, it was sure to send shivers straight down anybody’s spine. 

“Now isn’t the time!” Himiko condemns in a whispered yell. “We’re all stressed out, but we need to be  _ quiet!  _ Like  _ mice!!” _

Korekiyo shifts uncomfortably, but still can’t help but correct, “Again, mice are not that quiet--”

“Is  _ now _ the time to--??”

_ “Again?” _ Tenko parrots, now at full volume. It’s Angie’s turn to flip around and sush her, but the brunette continues on. “How many times have you been berating my girlfriend with your pointless comments,  _ menace!?!?” _

“None! No times!” Himiko responds. “We need to— We need to be quiet—“

“I know that I asked to have a conversation earlier,” Says Angie, her voice calm and still light despite the circumstances. “But maybe now is not the best time, yes?”

Himiko looks over at the former artist, whose face held a shaky, serene expression. Angie’s eyes looked considerably duller than usual, grin hollow and lifeless.

Tenko stammers for a moment, buffering, “I don’t—?? I don’t understand how you could be so calm about this, Angie—!?”

Angie simply raises a quiet finger over her lips. 

Her shell necklace is still wrapped tightly around her knuckles, a meek protection if anything were to attack her. Somebody’s blood still painted the sharp edges of certain shells, indicating that she had cut skin during her fight. Her pearly white necklace was ruined in the same way that Himiko’s playing cards were: both were soiled with blood in their small time as impromptu weaponry. 

Tenko stares at her with misty eyes, her snarl trembling as her bottom lip wobbles. With a sharp head flip, her glare goes back to Korekiyo, who quickly averts his own gaze in return. A silent pause falls over them again as Tenko’s hard stare begins to weaken, until her flickering eye contact starts to leer in Himiko’s direction. Behind her gritted teeth and flared nostrils is a feeling of pure panic and confusion, a look of somebody who truly, truly can not understand what is happening. Even Himiko, terrible emotional intelligence and all, is able to see that. Beneath all of her defensive manoeuvres, Tenko is terribly scared of what she does not know. Because she doesn’t  _ know _ what Korekiyo will do next. She doesn’t know what will happen to any of them, if this countdown ever stops, if some manic participant ends up finding them. There’s no amount of preparation she can do if she doesn’t know what is going to happen.

Would an answer be the best extinguisher of this argument? If Himiko gave her  _ something? _ An explanation? The truth?

“We just have to be quiet,” As her brain searches for  _ anything _ to resolve this conflict, the redhead’s mouth starts babbling on with filler. “We just have to believe… Or…. some other thing that Kaede would say.”

“There isn’t much to believe in,” Angie mumbles rather grimly. “Even if we do survive this ordeal, I can’t imagine whoever is behind this would let us live to tell the tale.”

The noise immediately gets sucked out of the vents. Angie, who was only maintaining eye contact with her hands, preserves this expression of empty neutrality while the rest of the occupants look on in complete dread. Tenko stops, thinks about it for a second, before she starts erupting into further sobs. 

Himiko was starting to think that comfort was truly impossible at this point. Every time she tries to think of something to say, she comes up blank.

“Nothing to believe in…?” Korekiyo echoes silently, as if he was quietly analysing the statement. 

Angie deadpans a stare, still smiling, “No.”

She turns back.

For somebody who hasn’t talked to Angie since the simulator, her loss of belief could absolutely come as quite the massive shock to Korekiyo in comparison to the bright, stubbornly devoted artist she was in the simulator. Himiko is once again reminded of how long it has been since they’ve seen each other, of how long it has been since Korekiyo has even talked to Angie and Tenko. He used to analyse people in the killing game, used to learn their personalities and understand who they were, but now he is severely behind. Underprepared. 

Himiko feels her heart plummet further down into her stomach.  _ That makes two of them, _ she reckons.

“I don’t get it, I don’t  _ get it…” _ Tenko repeats, words laced with muffled hiccups as she sinks back into her balled-up position. “Why is--?” She throws her hands weakly between Korekiyo and Himiko, just barely implying confusion towards the two of them. “Why--?” She gestures out the vent, towards the outside.

In a last ditch effort to distract, Himiko clutches onto Tenko’s arm even tighter and looks over at her girlfriend’s phone, “You’re okay.  _ Breathe,  _ alright? We’ll be okay.”

Tenko can’t even muster an answer. She timidly shows Himiko her phone’s screen, revealing no reply from the group chat. It was almost like she was disagreeing with the redhead’s statement of “we’ll be okay”. 

Himiko can feel her stomach clench further. That shaky feeling is beginning to return to her, rushing at her in waves. It isn’t eased in the slightest as Angie emits a weary sigh, slowly turning her head towards Himiko. After checking, long and hard, outside of the vent’s grate, she’s come to the conclusion that nobody is around to hear their conversation. Himiko double checks as well, noticing how the shadows that had been running so frequently past their hiding spot have come to a silent halt. Any screaming was now hallways away-- floors, even.

Angie spends another few seconds thinking of something to say. She’s incredibly careful with her words, eyebrows knitting together in deep thought, before her eyes land fully on Himiko.

“Was there a reason that you came straight to this hiding spot?” She acts. There’s no malice behind it, but her voice is considerably more calm in comparison to the weeping Tenko. “You seemed so certain, like you’ve been here before.”

It was inevitable, at this point. Himiko didn’t want to have this conversation, but it appears the universe was now forcing her to have it. It was almost laughable, how convenient this all was. They’ve all been placed inside this “get-along” t-shirt in the form of a hotel vent, with no choice but to stay there and rot. 

Himiko flashes a look at Korekiyo, gulping down a hard lump in her throat. Korekiyo stares back for a second.

“I had overheard that Himiko found this hiding spot,” He quickly lies, before Himiko is able to open her mouth. “I ran to take it immediately.”

_ “Creep!” _ Tenko accuses, again lunging manically at the former anthropologist. 

The redhead desperately holds her back, once more having to place her entire body between the two before the brunette is able to grab at Korekiyo. Tenko manages to swat him once before Himiko finally wrangles her back in, all the while Angie watches on patiently.

“No! No, that’s not true!” Himiko defends, placing Tenko back in her spot. “We met up and talked about it beforehand!”

“You met up and--  _ Huh!?” _ Tenko stammers as she roughly sits back down.

Everything about this hurts. There is truly no relief that comes from telling her this. But Angie had been right before, and it was better to rip off the bandaid now than it was to let everything fester and grow until it was truly irreversible. As much as it pained every part of Himiko to do this, it was better to get it over with now. 

The redhead takes a deep breath. Inhales. She can feel her lungs painfully compress against the bruise on her back. Exhales.

“We started working together… on the first day, I think,” She begins slowly. “After the first gunshot went off, he showed me a place to hide. Right here, actually…”

Tenko’s face begins to morph from unbridled anger to a much simpler confusion, water still running endlessly down her face but her shoulders no longer jolting with sobs. Her gaze flickers back and forth between Korekiyo and the redhead for a moment, before they finally settle on Himiko.

“...What?” She breathes. Her voice is silent again.

Himiko swallows, hard, “U-Um…. I think after that… He asked me a few questions about Sakine, or something…”

“You mean the girl who just revealed herself as Junko Enoshima?” Angie clarifies with a firm tilt of her head. To anybody else, it might have appeared a bit accusatory. To Himiko, it was a simple nod to the side.

God. Everything Himiko says and does just feels terribly incriminating. “I didn’t know at that point…”

She knew much earlier than either Tenko or Angie did, but that was a conversation for another time. That wasn’t now. When she was already trying her hardest not to emote or show just how absolutely terrified of persecution she was.

“We’ve just been... working together ever since,” Himiko admits. Everything falls out of her mouth very quickly. Bluntly. There’s relief seeped into her tone, evident in her shaky exhales. “...Trying to figure everything out.”

_ “I  _ had the idea to continue working together,” Korekiyo tries to lie again, noticing how Tenko’s face was beginning to scrunch up in disdainful confusion.

“No, that was also my idea…” Himiko sighs. There was a very visible distinction between her normally slow tone and the sudden rush in her voice. “It was my idea to keep working, and to keep looking for clues, and…. I-I don’t know,  _ do things.  _ We-- We were just looking for  _ anything _ we could find. A-And I should have told you, or said something, but it all happened so fast and I knew you’d be all… mad, I guess… And I’ve made a huge mess, but I just wanted to…” Her voice seems to drift. “I’m sorry. I-I should have told you guys.”

Korekiyo’s eyes widened slightly, as if he was also going to apologise, but he turned away just as quickly. The thought is quashed instantly. He, unlike a certain redhead, was being very careful with his choice of words as he resides in a confined space with one of his victims, and a would-be victim with absolute malice in her glare. This was a conversation that was much more important to him than it was the former mage, she knows that, and it was pretty obvious that he was concocting some kind of a formal speech, knowing that his turn to explain was arriving quickly.

Himiko looks back over at Angie and Tenko. Both girls seemed to have frozen, their expressions varying but both remaining frozen in place. Tears were still streaming from Tenko’s eyes, but her lips seemed to coil downwards, her eyebrows furrowed and knitted together. Angie’s mouth was pressed into a thin line, an expression so unreadable that Himiko could feel something heavy start to grow back into her throat, emotions ready to kick back tenfold. It wasn’t even about feeling bad, really-- it was more about her inability to understand how they were feeling, of how they were reacting to it all. They could understand entirely or hate her completely.

“Are you mad at me?” She feels inclined to ask. “I don’t know if-- I’m really sorry… I-I should have said--”

“I-I’m not mad!” Tenko quickly assures, expression softening with concern before it immediately falls at the sight of Korekiyo still being there. “I just don’t-- I don’t… get…”

Angie leans forward, lowering her volume, “I’m not mad, either. It feels rather silly to hold anger towards your friends in an event like this, right?”

“Do you notice you keep doing that?” Tenko rapidly says, voice shaking. “You keep drawing attention back to what’s happening when I really don’t want to know what’s happening and I don’t really need a reminder on what is currently happening, right now, outside of the vents we are currently in, so--”

“And I guess, in some way or another, I understand why you didn’t tell us,” Angie’s glance at the former anthropologist does not go unnoticed. “...I actually… don’t know, Himiko. It’s a rather complicated situation.”

Himiko’s nose twitches. They had both explicitly stated they weren’t mad, but she couldn’t help but feel as if she was missing out on some sort of subtextual jab. Even if there wasn’t one at all. She just needs to take a deep breath. Inhale, exhale. Sleep this whole thing away, maybe.

“I-I’ll tell you what. I’m not mad at  _ you, _ Himiko, because I’m mad at  _ somebody else,” _ Tenko decides, heavily implying that “somebody else” was the 6’2 man crouched over just a few feet away from them.

“That’s… not fair…” The redhead says meekly. “I-It was my idea…”

“Y-Y-Yeah, but--!” 

Tenko flips her head back and forth between Korekiyo and Himiko, mouth hanging open in words left unsaid. She then turns to Angie, hopeful that maybe the former artist would back her up, but all the tiny girl does is stare blankly back. Unexpressive.

“Why is everybody in this vent acting like he  _ didn’t _ try to kill me!? L-Like he  _ didn’t _ kill Angie…!?” Tenko flusters. Himiko frowns. “A-Am I going insane!? Are we really ignoring everything he’s done? Everything he’s done to  _ you, _ Himi? He tried to pin it all on you! He tried to blame  _ you _ for  _ everything!” _

Korekiyo mumbles something under his breath, perhaps requesting that she be just a bit quieter, but any real complaint he might have is immediately shoved aside by the moral high ground both Tenko and Angie stood upon. It’s almost as if he believed anything he might have to say has to be approved by them, can’t be contradictory or opposing, like he has to agree with them sheerly because he seeks redemption for his actions. There’s a look of panic starting to grow visible in his eyes, the way his irises dart from one place to another, the all around jitteriness of his demeanour. As if too many people were talking at once. As far as Himiko was concerned, it was just her and Tenko talking. She wasn’t sure what Korekiyo was hearing.

“You’re not at all,” It’s up to Himiko to be the mediator, the crossroads between two broken highways. “And we’re not ignoring it, we’re just…  _ Just…” _

She turns to Korekiyo. He is staring directly back. Something unspoken passes between them, despite neither of them necessarily shifting their facial expression to convey it. It was a silent conversation, almost as if Himiko was telling him to do something. Say  _ anything. _

Korekiyo looks back as if he understood her completely, as if he knew exactly what every face of hers implied. For a brief second, he closes his eyes and sits, just breathing. A moment passes where everybody waits expectantly. All that could be heard in the vents was Tenko’s rather irregular inhales, the hiccups she was trying to suppress entirely. 

He sits upright.

“I don’t know… What to say,” Korekiyo says. It’s anti-climactic, completely unexpected. “I’ve been trying to think of something to say for… a long time.”

“You-- You sure had a lot to say in the  _ simulator,” _ Tenko snarls. “W-With all your  _ fancy words,  _ a-and all of your  _ ‘humanity is beautiful’  _ crap--”

“Forgive me, I’ve been attempting to deconstruct my dialect from the simulator and it appears I can no longer find… a-all of the right words.”

“Not even an apology?” Angie suggests coldly.

The room turns chillingly silent again, so much so that Himiko could hear participant’s footsteps from way down the hall. Most people have found hiding spots by now, but some were still running, searching for participants or anywhere they could stay. Their footsteps were like knives to Himiko’s ears, any outside noise drilling against her skull in a manner that seemed much too exaggerated for her liking. 

While Tenko’s gaze was pointed at Korekiyo in fragile rage, Angie’s stare seemed much more calm. Patient. She was waiting for something to be said, perhaps waiting for that apology, knowing that it would spark the conversation in a more progressive manner. One that was more constructive than what it was now, more open-minded. Korekiyo just stares back. The mask again conceals any sort of twitch in his lips, any sort of frown or scowl. There really was nothing that Himiko could understand about him. 

He was probably thinking, if Himiko were to take a good guess. Now was a very crucial time to think over your words. It was also possible that he simply wasn’t going to say anything at all, his mind gone somewhere else entirely and his eyes glazed over. 

Himiko felt responsible for overseeing this discussion, almost as if she was supervising the event so nothing got too out of hand. Noticing how Korekiyo wasn’t saying anything, she quickly jumps in to possibly lead the conversation elsewhere.

“We have to remember that… we were prewritten to act that way,” It’s an excuse that she’s heard at perhaps every therapy session, at every recovery clinic from every nurse. That they weren’t in control of any of their horrible actions, that they shouldn’t think about feeling terrible over them or dwelling too much. Repeating those words just feels oddly planned, like she didn’t  _ actually _ feel this way but was instead searching for the right thing to say. “... A-And, I guess--”

“No, that’s not an excuse,” Korekiyo disagrees.

Tenko nearly growls, simply because he had interrupted Himiko, but Angie gently waves her hand to stop her. A moment passes where Korekiyo hesitates, but Angie nods, almost as if giving him permission to continue. 

“I-I understand fully that… even if our actions were prewritten for us, the harm indicted onto others and the emotions felt were still… real. And it is hard to ignore how an event makes one feel, I understand that very well,” His words are monologued, obviously nervous but clearly planned out. It was like he had been preparing this explanation, this apology, for months in advance. Like he had always wanted to say this. “There is no excuse. I also know that. My actions were… vile, extremely horrid. I am learning to… grow, I suppose is the word-- however, you are not... inclined to forgive me, at all. I only wish that you both know how truly…  _ sorry _ I am. That even a characterised version of me had done such harm upon both of you.”

There it was. The apology. Spoken eloquently, using language that Himiko would mostly be able to understand. It wasn’t calling for forgiveness, was not dismissive or trying to excuse any of his actions. It was simply an apology. A truly genuine statement of remorse.

Tenko’s face scrunches again. Himiko has seen her do this before, usually when she’s glaring at someone and wondering whether she is supposed to hate them or put her grievances aside. There’s still clear fury in her expression, anger and confusion ridden in her frown, hands still shaking as they sloppily wipe at her nose again. Blood seeps into her green sleeve, soiling it perhaps permanently. Any words of malice or ill-intent have been silenced. Her lips coiled in disdain, as if she was about to start cursing or yelling, but nothing cruel falls out of her mouth. Himiko nearly braces herself to place her body between the pair if Tenko were to lunge a third time.

But after a long, agonising stare of detestation in Korekiyo’s direction, Tenko suddenly sighs. Wearily. 

“I’m not going to forgive you,” She says bluntly. Korekiyo sucks in a breath, but nods nevertheless. “I-I know it was all… That it was all  _ fiction.  _ I-I-I get that, I do. B-But every time-- I can’t get rid of… the  _ nightmares.  _ Or anything like that. A-And  _ you’re _ in all of them. You may have been prewritten to do all of that, but-- but it doesn’t make anything less  _ real _ to me.”

“Yes,” Is all Korekiyo can manage, voice small.

“So-- So  _ yes, _ I’m mad you. O-Of course I am! I’m mad at you, and Danganronpa, and--” She once more throws her hands at the vents, tearfully gesturing at the commotion outside.  _ “Everything!  _ Just let me have that, okay? I’m gonna be angry for a  _ while.  _ That’s how I  _ feel _ and that is how I’m  _ going _ to feel, p-probably for a while. You’re gonna have to give me a while.”

Korekiyo was only nodding. There’s something misty falling over his eyes.

Tenko clears out the sob in her throat, crossing her arms and wiping more blood from her nose, “Okay. Those are my thoughts. I’m just gonna close my eyes and do breathing exercises now, thank you very much.”

“You stated your piece,” Himiko congratulates with harmless humour added to it. 

“Stated my piece,” Tenko echoes, leaning against the wall. Before she fully closes her eyes, she looks over at Korekiyo. “Don’t talk to me again.”

“Understood,” Korekiyo agrees. 

Tenko nods curtly at him, exhaling heavily.

Angie, less emotive, looks down at her hands, “I’m glad we got to talk. It was starting to look like everybody else discussed what happened in the simulator while we glossed over it.”

“With a few exceptions,” Himiko mumbles, half-heartedly attempting humour. Maybe she could lighten the conversation up a little. Or maybe it was just incredibly tone-deaf.

Angie returns a tiny smile, the grin just barely reaching her eyes, “Of course. And, Korekiyo, I think I’ll have to agree with Tenko. It may have not been real, but it still hurt, hm?” 

The former anthropologist has no response, no nod or hum of understanding. He just stares at the former artist with wide eyes. 

“Kalama tells me that forgiving others is the way to healing,” Kalama was the name of Angie’s therapist. Himiko met her once, probably, when Angie had made a late night call to her during a sleepover. “...But honestly, I think that is pretty bullshit. If I’m not ready to forgive, then what is the point in giving you false mercy? It feels cruel to the both of us.”

Sudden curse word aside, Himiko lets her know she’s listening with a slight bob of the head. The former anthropologist just barely copies.

“Good things come to those who wait, Korekiyo,” Angie says. “Give us some time. We’ve heard your apology.”

Tenko grumbles something about “not wanting to”, but her eyes were closed and her lips barely moved so it looked like she didn’t say anything at all.

The vents fall back into silence, except this time it is considerably less tense. There seems to be less discomfort, at least from what Himiko can pick up from obvious body language, as the four huddle in the tiny vents and wait for things to blow over. It was a relief to get everything over with, a small comfort found within this convention, as the timer continued to count down without any of them being able to prevent it. At least, if that timer did reach 11:00 and forty people had not been killed, they would have aired their grievances with each other. At least, if that timer ticked down to another massacre, Himiko would have apologised. Explained everything. At least, if that timer reaches its limit and Himiko is the first to go, Korekiyo has to say sorry. 

Korekiyo looks over at the necklace Angie has been staring so intensely at. It was still wrapped tightly around her knuckles, still bloody and battered. 

“Puka shells,” The former anthropologist observes quietly. Angie perks her head up to look at him again. “They’re meant to symbolise good luck.”

Angie blinks at him, before the corner of her mouth very, very faintly begins to curl upwards, “Right. Let’s hope they do bring good fortune. I didn’t know puka shells were in your line of study?”

“Not necessarily, but many civilisations in the Pacific Islands used to believe finding a puka shell meant good luck. The more symmetrical the shell, the better your luck.”

“I was given puka shells all the time on my old island. Err-- The fictional one, anyways.”

“I like those puka shells, they look nice!!” Always holding an opinion, Tenko begins to speak softly. She sounds more confident, less frightened. “A-And if they  _ do  _ mean good luck, we could all buy a pair and make sure nothing like  _ this _ ever happens again…”

“We should buy a whole ton. We’d be the luckiest people on earth,” Himiko agrees.

“Yes! Y-You are so smart, Himiko!”

“...Isn’t there already a few participants in this facility with luck as an Ultimate Talent?” Korekiyo comments silently.

“You’re right,” Angie agrees. “I wonder how that works?”

The conversation continues. Gently and with an anxious air overriding it, but it continues. Himiko barely has to moderate anybody’s language anymore, or interfere before anybody lunged. It was still silent, still nervous, but it continued.

And continued, and continued, and continued. For once, things were continuing instead of staying still. Things were moving forward rather than remaining.

As the clock finally ticks down to 11:00, Himiko hopes. Hopes to continue. 

God, she just wants everything to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ██/40


	43. i'm sorry, i'm sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another conversation? in THIS convention??

Kokichi has this habit of sighing as loudly as humanly possible every five minutes. Miu has come to learn this the hard way.

It’s probably not because he even  _ has _ to sigh. He most likely notices how silent the room has gotten and feels some violent urge to fill it with noise, even if that means humming or ad libbing some cartoonish sound effect. Miu can’t exactly say much about it, even if she really wanted to. She just doesn’t have the energy to yell, anymore. As punishment for her exhaustion, however, Kokichi is allowed to continue with his mindless sighs. No words, of course. Both of them would be damned to start another conversation.

They’re sitting on opposite ends of the kitchen, curled up and sitting tiredly against the floor. Miu takes a rather dusty spot in between two counters, her back leaning up against one of the counter’s sides, hands dropped lazily into her lap. Kokichi sits way across from her, taking refuge underneath a kitchen table, shadowed by the table’s surface. The handgun sits directly in the middle of them both, having sat there ever since Miu dropped it on the floor.

Other than the variety of sound effects coming from Kokichi’s mouth, it’s been almost entirely silent. Miu stopped crying _who_ _knows_ how long ago, leaving her with this entirely empty feeling as she sits pathetically on the floor. Kokichi did not look as sad, as usual for him after his typical fits of crocodile tears, except this time he had no smile to bear. He had no grin to shove in Miu’s face, no chants of, “It’s a lie!” to prove his sobs fake or untrue. Everything about his expression just seemed blank, hollow. Like he has nothing left to give anymore.

Miu thought about leaving the kitchen, but every rational part of brain seemed to have finally kicked in by now to tell her that it was a stupid idea. The time limit was going to expire very, very soon, and who knows how many “Miu’s” are out there with their guns, ready to shoot. Who knows how many have died. How many people have already been killed, have already  _ killed.  _

At this point, Miu was just too tired to give a shit. Who cares? She’s exhausted from her head to her toes, unable to move or do anything. She’s burned every bridge, severed every friendship, lost so much trust. Who cares what happens next? Who cares what happens to her?

The timer will go off any moment now, and will announce whether they’ve won or lost. Maybe there weren't any winners or losers in this convention. Maybe everybody was a massive loser, in one way or another. And maybe, no matter what happens, Miu won’t be making it out of here alive. She thought she was invincible, once. And that wasn’t even speaking in figurative terms; back in the simulator, Miu legitimately thought she had been altered so much after The Crash that she couldn’t die. What an absolutely wild backstory that Danganronpa had given her. And how stupid she was to believe it. For all of that talk of having a “brilliant brain”, there sure wasn’t a whole ton of it being used. 

She looks over Kokichi. Neither of them have been maintaining any form of eye contact with the other. It’s just been pure silence, both of them acknowledging that it was safer to remain hidden in the kitchen but neither wanting to begin a conversation about what just happened. It seemed, for a moment, that both of them were ready to just simply ignore it. 

Miu isn’t so sure what came over her, but she remembers that stupid simulator story and exhales through her nose in pitiful amusement.

“Y-You know, they made me think I was an augmented human?” Miu admits with a dry smile.

Kokichi blinks, looking up at her. Clearly he wasn’t expecting any sort of comment from her, especially not  _ that. _

“...What?” He says, squinting.

“Danganronpa. They made me think I was augmented-- Like, s-some fuckin’ half-robot, or shit.”

A beat passes, “...Seriously?”

“Yeah, dead fuckin’ serious,” Even her voice sounds tired, lax and hoarse from wailing her eyes out. Such calm, lazy words were quite the juxtaposition to her loud screeching, her shrill demands and threats. “I, uh-- I was in this awful coma for a long period of my life due to some-- some car accident, I guess. Real life-or-death type shit. Came out of it alive and with all a’ these new ideas and inventions stuffed into my brain that I just had to finish. Before I got into another coma, o-or something. I dunno,” It seems Kokichi doesn’t have much to quip about. He’s only sitting there, listening. “And I guess my head went so far up my own ass about this new brain they gave me that I thought I was--” She’s interrupted by her own facetious chuckles. Her laughter feels rough in her throat. “An augmented human. Yup.”

“And you believed it?” Kokichi snarks. 

“F-Fucking duh _ -doy, _ I believed it! How else were they gonna explain this hot ass bod?” Miu sasses right back, finding a brief moment of strength as she flexes her left arm’s muscles in false arrogance. 

“That’s…” 

He pauses, letting his first choice of words pass by. Everything about his expression looks dry, almost sarcastic. For a brief second, it looks as if he was debating whether this completely off-topic, rather facetious conversation was even worth his time, but after a moment of consideration he continues.

“...So fucking funny,” He completes, humourlessly. 

“It is,” Miu agrees, also humourlessly. “Fuck, dude. Nearly took a screwdriver to my stomach to test if I was a cyborg, or some shit. Absolutely flipped out. Thought I was… like… immortal, or somethin’.”

“And how did  _ that _ work out for you?”

Miu spares him a low glare, but it barely holds any power, “I don’t know. You tell me.”

Kokichi’s eye narrow sarcastically, “To speak my truth--”

“Okay, actually shut the fuck up with that. It is so goddamn annoying.”

“Phooey!” He snaps his fingers. “Now I have to find another endearing character trait…”

_ “N-Nothing  _ about that was endearing, pissbaby...!”

“Wow. First you threaten me with a gun, and now you call me a pissbaby?” His childish mocking is much duller than usual, and there are no crocodile tears to accompany it. “You’re so cruel to me, Iruma.”

“G-Get over it,” She grumbles under her breath, too tired to bother biting back at him.

Kokichi looks down at his phone with a solemn hum, acknowledging her comment but not speaking on it, “10:58. Not like I’d expect a filthy cumstain like you to be able to tell time correctly."

Miu withers, “W-W-What the  _ fuck??” _

“Oh, come ooooooooooon. You gotta let me bully you a  _ little  _ bit,” Kokichi says, throwing his hands in the air. “I deserve this!”

“Fucker! You--”

She  _ very _ nearly let slip that he “deserved  _ that” _ while gesturing at the firearm on the floor, but her brainless trash talk is paused immediately before it goes any further. Her sharper personality always seems to slip whenever she’s tired or anxious, not thinking about the consequences as much. Even if she doesn’t complete her sentence, her stony glare towards the gun on the floor seems to finish it for her. Kokichi tilts his head at it. If he had wanted to grab the firearm and make a run for it, he could have done so a long, long time ago. 

“What are you gonna do after this, Iruma?” He asks fairly genuinely. “You expect me not to say anything?”

Of course not. She would never raise her hopes that high, would never expect Kokichi Ouma not to immediately tell everybody about the stunt she had just pulled. He liked to lie and cheat until the moments where Miu wishes he  _ would  _ lie. In the moments he actually needed to withhold information, Kokichi blabs on like it is his story to tell. 

But no matter what Kokichi says to anybody, it’s not like it matters a whole ton, anyways. Her reputation has already sunken to the mud, so now it was a matter of whether it stayed there or sunk even further.

“Dunno,” She slurs haphazardly. “...Gotta find a new place, I guess. ‘C-Cause Kaede ain’t gonna let me stay with her.”

“Mhm,” Kokichi hums, nodding in attentiveness. 

“But if you mean righ’now, I-I might just…”

She doesn’t know. She really doesn’t know. Obviously nobody in this convention is going to be happy with how the enforcement team handled things, even if everybody was more than desperate. Miu isn’t sure if she can show her face outside again. She’s not sure how she is going to explain her failure to the enforcement team, and is even less sure how she’s going to explain her  _ success _ to her class. She can’t leave this kitchen without risking getting shot in the face. She can’t run to her hotel room and hide, because her roommate still has a spare key and will undoubtedly be so, so angry at her for the shit she pulled at that meeting--

...Would Kaede even be there? There was a subconscious part of Miu that longed to see her again, even when she knew that Kaede would probably never forgive her for what she had done, for who she had become. But what if Kaede was… gone? What if Miu never got to see her again? The former pianist had disappeared into the crowd before the strawberry blonde could even think to find her, had vanished from sight as soon as the blackout occurred. What if, when and if these lights turn back on, Kaede wasn’t there anymore? What if something had happened to her? The “what if’s” swirl and fester in Miu’s head, all of the possibilities crashing against her skull. What if Kaede was  _ dead?  _ What if Kaede got  _ killed _ out there? What if--?

“Are you gonna start crying again?” Kokichi sighs. “You already left a puddle on the floor.”

Miu sours, lips pursing,  _ “W-W-We _ did, dicknips! Joint effort!”

“Wow! You actually thought I was crying? You’re so much more gullible than I thought!”

“Whatever,” Miu dismisses, too tired to argue. “G-God, I feel like  _ shit.  _ My head hurts.”

“Yeahhhhhh, nearly killing somebody does that to you!”

The strawberry blonde squints, hard, “Wonder what  _ actually _ killing somebody does to you.”

“Hey… That’s so mean…” Kokichi pouts with little effort towards the dramatic. “You totally conspired to kill me first, so technically my plan to kill you was just payback! That’s what I tell myself, anyways.”

Miu continues to stare at him, long and hard. The former supreme leader stares back with the ghost of his signature grin across his face, a smile that was distant and weary. 

“An apology? Is that what you want, twerp?” She finally spits, still maintaining intense eye contact. “I-I-If I give you an apology, will you get the fuck off my back? ‘C-Cuz it’s not like  _ I  _ was in control of whatever shit I did in the simulator--”

“It wasn’t like I was, either. Your point?”

Miu’s lips curled, even if what he was saying was incredibly, painfully true, “Then why do you bitch about it all the time--?”

“Then why do  _ you _ bitch about it all the time?” Kokichi mocks.

“...Stop copying me.”

“Stop copying me!”

“Qui-- You know what, fuck you!! If you’re so desperate for that apology, you better get on your damn knees and give  _ me _ one, first!” __

“Oh, yeah? Because I don’t recall  _ that--” _ Kokichi sharply gestures at the gun lying pathetically in between them, face contorted. “Being  _ prewritten _ for you, so how about  _ you _ beg for forgiveness! Unless you  _ want _ to admit that you’re just letting Danganronpa run  _ everything _ about your life, now--”

“I-I’m not begging you for  _ shit!!” _ Miu snaps, even though she knows all too well that everything that had just happened was, in fact, her fault, and that she should definitely apologise. 

“Then  _ sit there,” _ Kokichi says venomously. 

“...Fine.”

And she does. The pair continue this silent streak of theirs, sitting totally opposite from each other, the red alarm lights still flickering and furthering this headache that Miu had. Seconds ticked by, valuable time being lost and wasted as she sat there childishly, too prideful to admit she was wrong and too stubborn to be the first to apologise. Everything about the room she was in felt heavy, like the air was suffocating her, like the red lights were warning her of a death that was so soon to arrive. It was like the red lights were reminding her of the ticking seconds, of all of the friends she had left outside of this kitchen, of everything she had left unsaid as she waited for the time limit to reach zero. What a terrible, terrible way to end things. What an awful end for Miu Iruma: an emotional state bordering on another panic attack, somebody just a few feet away to remind her of her wrongdoings and a gun even closer to her to really drive the point home, lights that blare and flash to press her state of panic further. 

She had mere seconds left. They might just be the last seconds of her life. Everything felt so incredibly inevitable, death caving in at an agonisingly slow pace. Miu could barely remember a time where her heart was beating this fast despite the rest of her body being so hopelessly tired. Usually, most of the time, her entire body would kickstart into panic mode, making decisions quickly and moving  _ quickly, _ not staying still and sitting there like she was now. Everything inside of her begged to move, but the outside of her wanted nothing more than to just close her eyes and accept it.

Something deep within her seems to click all of the sudden. This might very well be her last remaining seconds.

“I’m sorry,” Is what she says upon realising, the words forced and sounding almost painful to get out. She couldn’t even muster up the courage to look the former supreme leader in the eyes. Everything about her expression looks frightened, like a small child. She can’t help but curse how awful of an apology it was, how apprehensive about it she sounded. “There, is that what you wanted to hear? I’ve said it.”

Kokichi was still looking over at her, even if Miu was much too wilted to return the eye contact. His facial expression sits in an unreadable position, before the corners of his lips raise in a tired smile. 

“Hm… Pretty poor, don’t you think?” He teases in a hoarse whisper, as if he barely had the energy to fully commit to the mockery.

Miu rolls her watery eyes, turning away even further as her face begins to flush, “God, you’re such a fucking prick.”

“You know what? It might take me a second to just  _ forget _ about you trying to kill me. Forgive me about that.”

“O-Okay,  _ okay--  _ But I’m  _ sorry.  _ I’m sorry, okay? I-I gave you an apology, I’m not gonna-- gonna pull that again, so please just leave me alone, alright?” Miu whispers, embarrassed. 

Kokichi hums, almost like he was agreeing, but said nothing verbally in response to her last statement. He does not follow up her statement of regret with any apology of his own, simply nodding at her from afar. Almost in total awe of the situation, in disbelief of the events that had and  _ were _ transpiring. Miu couldn’t help but agree. The last few minutes, quite possibly of her life, just felt totally rushed, not real. Maybe, if she closed her eyes and really thought hard about it, it wasn’t real at all. Maybe her being willing and ready to kill somebody, even if it was somebody as awful as the former supreme leader, was just some elaborate prank her mind was pulling on her. Maybe she hadn’t backed out at the last moment, maybe Kokichi hadn’t dropped into a heap of tears with her. 

Maybe she was just sleeping, again. In another coma. Maybe this was all just some cruel, intricate, tortuous coma dream she was having. Hell, maybe she  _ was _ real, after all, and the killing game never happened. Who knows how far back this dream of hers possibly went?

There wasn’t much use trying to deny it all, though. This moment was real. Very, very real. With real actions and real consequences. 

Maybe that apology of hers wasn’t the best she could have possibly done, but god. It was  _ something. _ It was something from the prideful, stubborn, hopelessly ashamed Miu Iruma. It was a pathetic excuse of an apology, one that would barely hold any sort of impact considering she had waved a gun in his face mere minutes ago, but it was an apology, nonetheless. 

That stunt she had pulled didn’t feel like a few minutes ago. It felt like days, years. It felt like she had been crying for decades. 

Kokichi had been crying, too. Maybe he felt sorry, also? Maybe there was some sort of  _ regret _ in that man? It seemed impossible, and quite honestly could just be Miu grasping at straws, desperately trying to find salvation in this hopeless situation. The longer she stared at him, the more she seemed to recognise his features: the purple both in his irises and beginning to grow underneath his eyes, that weak ass smile he was trying to pull off under the glaring red alarm lights. It all felt so surreal. So unrealistic. So wild and unimaginable, that it--

The speaker squeals with feedback. The lights all rush back on, a chilling contrast to the blackout during the first massacre. Everything was so visible, so clear. Miu can feel her heart stop.

**_“TASK TWO SUCCESSFUL,”_ ** Some voice says. It sounds blurry in Miu’s ears, distant and cold.  **_“SIXTY TARGETS ADDED TO NEXT TASK--”_ **

“Got any family to go back to?  _ Real  _ family?” Kokichi interrupts casually, shouting so that he is heard over the speakers.

Miu’s head snaps towards him, eyes wide and hands trembling. He was ignoring the announcement so pointedly, so purposefully. 

“Wh-What?” Miu whimpers.

“Family?” He repeats, still casual.

**_“YOU HAVE UNTIL THE END OF THE CONVENTION. A HUNDRED PEOPLE MUST DIE--”_ **

“I’ll tell you what-- I met my real family a few months ago and  _ wow _ , were they not happy to see me,” Kokichi gossips, checking his nails nonchalantly. Miu tries with everything she possibly had to just focus on his voice, no matter how annoying or grating it possibly was. “I mean, I didn’t expect any better, but still!  _ Sheesh. _ How ‘bout you?”

**_“THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES TO YOUR ACTIONS,”_ ** The voice ends. The phrase seems to bounce in Miu’s skull over and over.

“Irumaaaaaaaaa, don’t tell me you’ve gone deaf!! What happened to ‘speaking our truth’?” Kokichi whines. There’s a very slight shake hidden in his tone. “Come on, chat with me.”

“I-I-I don’t know, pieces of shit?? I haven’t talked with them much, o-or anything--” Her response is weak as she peers around the counter she was hidden behind, looking towards the door. 

What should she do? She needs to do something, she needs to do something  _ now.  _ She needs to run and hide somewhere safer, somewhere  _ not _ near Kokichi. What are they going to do  _ now? _ What is the enforcement team going to do  _ now!?  _ It isn’t over, nothing is over, and they’ve just started a riot, a  _ frenzy. _ Now there’s a hundred more people they need to kill, a hundred more people they need to murder, a hundred more people that could include Miu, that might include Miu, that  _ will include Miu.  _ Everything is rushing out of her grip so quickly, everything is happening too fast, even for her. People are going to be so mad at her, everybody is going to be  _ so mad at her.  _ They’re going to kill her. They’re going to kill her. 

“Yeahhhh, pretty expected. I mean, we entered Danganronpa for a reason, right?” Kokichi continues the discussion as if nothing around him was happening, as if they were just sitting at a bar and talking over drinks. “But I always wonder if our pre-game lives were similar to our in-game ones...”

“What the  _ fuck _ a-are you talking about?” Miu asks, dangerously close to dry heaving. 

“Fine! Geez! I’ll cut to the chase. I want to know if you’re a cyborg.”

_ “H-Huh!?” _

“You said you were a cyborg in the simulator!! I’m curious!!”

“I-I said that I _thought_ I was--” She scraps that stupid line of discussion before it went anywhere else, before she was dragged into Kokichi’s antics. “I-I-If this is some long-winded allegory about how I’m not a perfect person, you can shove a USB up your ass and save that bullshit for _later!”_

“Oh, no, you’re definitely not perfect. I mean, c’mon! Killing me would have been the easiest thing in the world, and you couldn’t even do  _ that _ correctly! Embarrassing. Truly.”

Miu takes what little energy she has left to hoist herself upwards, but loses strength rapidly and collapses against a nearby table, just barely on two legs, “I-I-I have to get out of here.”

Kokichi frowns. His lips twitched, like they were tired, “Ouch… pushing me away….! Hey, did you know that traumatised brains often hold a defence mechanism that automatically pushes people away before they can hurt you? Pretty rad and not relevant at all! Psychology is awesome, and I’m doing  _ very _ well at it in school.”

“T-Talking to you makes me  _ fuckin’ exhausted.” _

“I’m sure everybody thinks the same of you?” Kokichi hums.

Yeah, they probably do. They don’t have to tell that to Miu’s face for her to know it’s true. She pushes herself back up to her feet fully with a trembling scowl.

“I-I’m leaving,  _ goodbye,”  _ She says under her breath, attempting to coordinate her next actions. She hadn’t thought this far. None of them had. Now they all have to deal with the consequences. “I-I get the apology wasn’t enough and I don’t  _ care _ what you say to anybody but  _ please  _ just-- Just leave me alone? All of you? F-For the rest of the convention?”

“Ehhhhh. I don’t know if I’m actually gonna say anything,” Kokichi shrugs. 

Miu stops herself from turning away from him completely, again looking back to stare at him. Now that the lights were back on, she can clearly see how puffy and red his eyes were. His usual fake tears have never left such a vivid mark on him afterwards. Miu could only imagine what she looked like; her warped reflection in the metal table already told her enough. Her hair was matted from her running her hands viciously through them, her makeup blotted against her puffy eyes. Everything about her looks manic, completely pathetic. Like a small child lost without her parents in a busy train station.

“Y-You’re pulling my dick,” She sniffs. “I know you are.”

“Huh? No, actually, I don’t think I am. Not right now, anyways. It just wouldn’t make sense!” Probably realising that she was staring intently at the bags under his eyes, Kokichi subtly turns away. “Consider it my apology.”

“...Apology?” Miu says. It doesn’t hit her until she waits for a few pained seconds, when the word boomerangs back through her ears.  _ “Apology?” _

Kokichi’s eyes narrow, like he was thinking over his next choice of words quite intently. Miu couldn’t muster any sort of defence against him, already weak and crumbling, everything about her shaky as she debates on whether or not she should just book it and run to find people,  _ anybody.  _

“Yes. I’m sorry, Iruma. For everything,” He says.

It’s emotionless. Not even his usual mocking tone or coldness was audible. It was an entirely unreadable statement, completely blank and up to interpretation. It was almost frightening how absolutely expressionless it was, how easily he was able to just switch absolutely everything off. Miu isn’t able to discern anything from that statement. No regret, no remorse, but no audible malice or mockery, either. She’s led to assume the worst, as she did with everybody. As much as most of her brain tells her he was just playing with her, that nobody, not even Kokichi Ouma, was going to or even  _ should _ forgive her, there was one tiny part of her that was grasping for forgiveness. Maybe it was stupid to think he would ever give her that, not after what she had done. If she was anybody else, maybe he would have actually apologised and been genuine about it. 

Of course, if she was anybody else, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place. It’s weird how different she was. How completely out of place she felt amidst her class. She can only wonder why she was left to stick out like a sore thumb. 

If Kokichi was right, back when she had her gun pointed at him, then the former supreme leader had something to do with it: driving her away intentionally so she doesn’t hurt any of them. But maybe she was always going to do that. 

Miu turns to leaves, holding onto her stomach as if it was the only thing she could do to stop herself from completely losing her breath. Kokichi realises she’s moving to leave again and follows up on his own, not having been prompted by the strawberry blonde.

“...But since I didn’t say ‘to speak my truth’, I guess you’ll never know if I was lying, or not!” He teases, raising a joking finger over his lips. Miu doesn’t give him any sort of reply, so  _ of course _ he has to continue. “Besides, why would  _ I, _ a person who has definitely done nothing wrong  _ ever, _ need to apologise? It’s not denial if it’s true!!”

Miu hobbles over to the firearm on the floor. As much as it absolutely disgusted her to touch it, as much as she felt nauseous bending over and picking it up in her weak grasp, she still had to get it out of this room. She still had to return it to Akane. If Akane was even alive.

Kokichi stares at the gun warily, making sure it doesn’t leave his sight as Miu grabs it. The tired smile on his face stays frozen as he glares at it. Miu holds it with her fingers, keeping it as far away from her as possible.

“See yaaaaaaa,” He sings, waving at her lazily. “You’ve given me much to think about, cumdumpster. I don’t like it.” 

Miu doesn’t reply again, turning to the door. Where does she go from here? Where could she possibly go from here? Her room, right? That would be the safest thing to do, she reckons… But her room is a few stories up and would require her to avoid quite possibly  _ every _ other participant in the building. Maybe she could just hide under her bed for the rest of eternity. Miu gave it her best shot, if you could even consider  _ that _ her “best”, so now it was time for her to retreat. 

Surely there was no way forward but…  _ up,  _ right? Or was that just stupidly,  _ stupidly _ optimistic? The only path that Miu could see right now was out of this kitchen. 

“Hey!” Kokichi, who had so much to say despite sounding so, so tired, calls out to her. “Thanks for not killing me!”

“Don’t thank me for that,” Miu whispers, still walking towards the exit.  _ “Please.” _

“Heyyy, give yourself some credit!” It felt stupid and cruel to give Miu  _ any _ form of credit over what she did. “If I were in your spot, I totally wouldn’t have wussied out like you did! … Or, at least, I would get somebody else to do it, teehee! Just like the old times.”

“Just like old times,” Miu repeats, stopping at the door. She can’t help but pause for a moment, heart rate still accelerated and a stray tear falling down her face despite seemingly having sobbed all of her tears out previously. “Really, uh-- R-Really  _ is _ déjà vu, huh?”

“Haha, yep. Totally,” Kokichi agrees, still curled up underneath a counter. “Oh, also-- I don’t know what gave you the impression that everybody lets me off easy. Like, seriously, you narcissist!  _ Obviously _ I get told off all the time! I’m just super evil and don’t care.”

“Th-That’s not--” She wants to say something like  _ ‘that’s not the entire problem’,  _ but can’t find it in herself to even finish that statement. Obviously it wasn’t the entire problem.  _ She _ was the entire problem. She has much to change. “O-Okay. Yeah.”

“Alsoooo while I’m being super duper  _ mega _ generous and explaining everything to you, Gonta really does want to apologise! Maybe go talk to him--” He winks at her. “But without the gun.”

Miu wasn’t in any position to say no, or disagree, so she very shakily nods. It’s not a complete promise, but it’s not a complete dismissal, either. 

Kokichi bobs his head once, “Cool, cool! Also--”

“Are you  _ ‘being generous’,  _ or are you feeling guilty?” Miu interrupts. Kokichi’s face twitches. “B-Because if  _ you’re _ feeling guilty, then th-that just makes  _ me _ feel fuckin’--”

“Awful? Woooow, you have emotions? Maybe you’re not such a bad person, after all!”

Miu swallows, hard. Her throat feels constricted, barely taking in air. The gun shakes in her palms.

“You’re real entertaining, Iruma,” Kokichi smiles. “But I can tell this week hasn’t been super fun for you, hm?"

She can’t say anything back. She just shakes her head. 

“Yeeeahhhh. Gotta admit, nearly dying multiple times was totally not cool,” The former supreme leader says with a click of his tongue. “I guess I really need to take the hint, though… right? I mean, driving someone to kill me  _ once _ was bad enough, but a  _ second _ time?” He whistles. The note he hums is sad, dreary. “I’ve got a long way to go.”

Don’t they both? That was certainly one way forward. Learning, Miu supposes. She never liked  _ learning, _ she always thought she knew everything. Kokichi probably thought the same. Neither were the greatest listeners. 

Miu just can’t say anything. Every sentence that forms in her brain is either messy, a guilty  _ mess _ of a phrase, or loud yelling that she was simply too tired to commit to, too powerless to attempt throwing at him. She only stares at him. That is all she can muster. All she can do. Akane’s gun, the same gun that had been pointed at Kokichi mere minutes ago, was now pointed directly at her feet, trembling. 

Kokichi feels a buzz in his pocket and quickly turns away from  _ that _ conversation but distracting himself with an upcoming text. He reads over it, curses under his breath, and sits up so abruptly it makes Miu flinch.

“Whoopsie daisy! Looks like some of our classmates got hurt, so we oughta check up on them!” He chirps, skipping towards the exit. Miu tenses as he draws nearer. “Lead the way, oh bodyguard!”

“I don’t understand you,” Miu says under her breath.

“Ain’t that the beauty of it?” He drawls in a mockingly southern accent, before he drops the act and extends a hand. “Say, once we figure ourselves out, why don’t we have this conversation again? With less guns and violence, perhaps?”

Miu looks down at his hand. There’s a part of her brain that seems to remind her of the weapon in her hand, of how easy it would be just to get rid of all of her fear and take revenge for a plot she knows, deep down, wasn’t Kokichi’s  _ real  _ doing. The other half of her begs to differ, begs her to just do  _ anything _ good. 

She ends up grasping his hand. They shake it up and down exactly once before dropping their hands back to their sides.

“I-I think I’m gonna find Kaede. The others aren’t gonna want to see me,” Miu says.

“Bah. They never want to see me. I show up, anyways. It’s soooooo funny!”

“I’m real fuckin’ sure.”

“Ack--! You mock me, villain!”

Miu chest still felt incredibly heavy, like a rock was weighing down on it, “I’m gonna wake up tomorrow and this entire fuckin’  _ ‘moment’ _ we’re having is going to feel like a bad acid trip.”

“And I’ll be there to remind you of what you’ve done every waking day of your life,” Kokichi winks. Miu looks at him and nearly bursts into dry sobs. “Until  _ I  _ get over the guilt, anyways. Sooooooooooooo, probably a while.”

Miu reckons it was better to completely ignore that last statement, for both of their sakes. They spent the rest of that walk in silence once more until they eventually split ways, knowing that they will inevitably have to meet again.

She’s got people to find. Akane’s gun is still in her grip, but it feels much more uncomfortable there, now. Much more foreign than it did.

* * *

**TASK TWO SUCCESSFUL -- NONE ELIMINATED**

**Current dead: 107**

**Confirmed: 13**

**Unconfirmed: 94**

**CURRENT MOST LIKELY: Junko Enoshima, Kaede Akamatsu (?), Kyoko Kirigiri (?), Minaru Kanda (?), Byakuya Togami (?)**

**MM STATUS: Alive**

**_DANGANRONPA THEATRE EVENT CANCELLED DUE TO LOSS OF FOOTAGE -- SORRY FOLKS!_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly this is the most constructive conversation they've had this entire convention lmfaofhdsjk
> 
> 96/100

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr is @okthatsgreat !! 
> 
> collaborative story playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2bwO6jgLgGv92p2ipbsqZS?si=CQYF1dNbTO-y0O6-Zk13QQ
> 
> now with a tvtropes page! (thank you!! <3): https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/OrDidItEatTheLittleGirl
> 
> have a nice day :D


End file.
